Tip Top Tip

I generally don't like Christmas because there's far too much goodwill about!

Yet, eventhough the season is almost upon us, and contrary to all my normal instincts, I feel compelled to record my appreciation of an organisation which I have long admired.

I refer to the Holford Drive Tip in Perry Barry, Birmingham.

I have used the tip (probably shouldn't call it that - there is bound to be a euphemism - must find out what it is) for years.

I have seen staff come and go, although it is noteworthy that the turnover of staff is low.

I have seen the place evolve in response to changing requirements such as refrigeration and computer disposal; recycling; fluorescent tube disposal.

I have seen staff working out of doors, obviously, in snow and freezing cold; in the heat of summer and in pouring rain. But they are a really nice bunch - always polite, friendly almost. The weather doesn't seem to bother them at all.

I have seen a site which is inherently unsafe. There are many vehicle movements - many people movements - and all in a relatively confined space. But I haven't seen any accidents, and, if you look, you can see that the staff take care, particularly at busy times, to be about and on watch, just in case.

I have seen a site which is inherently dirty - after all it is a tip. But none of it. The sweeping and tidying never stops, with the result that the site is clean. You are struck by the fact that if you drop a piece of paper or a bit if a tree, it lands on an otherwise clean surface!

I think that the staff maintain this high level of tidiness as much for safety reasons as any other.

So, over the years I have given much thought to the staff of Holford Drive.

Why is it that the staff turnover is so low given the, at times, unsocial working conditions, and why is it that the staff are so consistently pleasant, given all the riff raff of the general public that they have to put up with. Why is it that they keep a 'tip' in such a clean and safe condition?

The answer must lie partly in the management.

Good working relations never exist where management does not genuinely respect the other members of staff, and by that I mean the staff and their representitives.

But the answer must also lie partly with the union(s). Management can only function properly where it has clear lines of communication with its staff and where staff issues are responsibly discussed and reasonably resolved.

And what of the chaps themselves? They must be hand-picked because they have the ability to deal with the public; aren't fazed by the weather, and take cleanliness and safety as second nature.

The foregoing is no bull. It is just a straightforward recitation of the facts as I see them, and common sense.

Of course, there must from time to time be tensions at the site; it would be unrealistic to suppose otherwise.

But I don't see evidence of these tensions when they arise. They do not overspill into the public.

All I do see is a great bunch of people giving a first class service, and, having given careful consideration to the matter over a number of years, I believe that Holford Drive must be close to a text book way of how to run a business.

I take my hat off to all who work there and, much as it goes against the grain, wish them all a Happy Christmas and many happy new years.

Sandwell Fantasy Land

Sandwell District Council, recently reported in the Sunday Times as last year being one of the 4 worst councils in the country, seems to be in a fantasy world of its own.

I recently published a photograph of a notice entitled 'Looking after your countryside' in which Sandwell extolled the virtues of chainsaws! Needless to say it is pursuing an active policy of chopping down trees, and this notice is presumably intended, somewhat bizzarely, to make its readers come to love the sound of metal on CO2 absorbing woodland.

And, of course, it is Sandwell that conceived the infantile £52+ million art gallery called 'The Public', which, apparently, contains very little art and almost no public!!

As if these don't provide sufficient evidence of a council which is detached from the rest of the world, try this for size.

Alongside Swan Pool, (a 30 something acre lake in Sandwell Valley), runs a tarmac path under which a tunnel has been made. The purpose of the tunnel, otherwise known as a run-off, is to regulate the height of the pool, by letting water overflow through the tunnel, when it reaches a certain level.

Sadly though, although the (£35,000 or £45,000, depending on who you talk to) run-off has been there since March, not one drop of water from the pool has yet passed through it.

'Why?' I hear you ask. 'Have we not had one of the wettest summers for years?'

It's true. Your observation is correct. We have indeed had rain this year and lashings of it.

So why then hasn't the pool overflowed through this tunnel?

The answer is very simple.

Just 200 hundred yards down the same path is another run-off, an old run-off, about 2/3rds the width of the new one. This old run-off, which as far as folk know, has always been there, is set at a lower level than the new one, and so water continues to flow out through it now, just as it has always done.

Put another way, the new run-off has been set at too high a level and, I am told, one of the chaps who was involved in making this run-off said that it would never work because it was too high!!

And I must say, to my untrained eye, he might have a point, because the pool surface is about 3 inches lower than the bottom of the tunnel. If my maths are correct you would need getting on for 4 million gallons of water just to get the pool height up to the bottom level of the new run-off, and, of course, while you are doing that, it's running out of the old run-off. Obviously there must be a point when water is going into the pool so fast that the old run-off can't take it all, and the pool level starts to rise up the necessary 3 inches to get to the new run-off. Unfortunately my maths isn't up to that calculation, but the required rate of input must be staggering.

So, you may think that the intellectual elite at Sandwell have done it again, only this time, instead of doing something irrepairably damaging to its woodlands, or wasting a small fortune on a non-art gallery, it has built something that has no possible use and is just plain stupid.

Well, you would be wrong.

The Sandwell intellectual elite know something that neither you, nor I, nor the chap who built the new run-off know.

They know, apparently, and I have this from a usually reliable source, that once every 100 years Swan Pool floods. Ho ho!

And when it does, Sandwell are ready for it!!

Bravo!!

It must be soon, because the pool has been there for over 100 years and nobody I have spoken to can remember it flooding yet.

Just one slight snag.

If I'm right about the millions or billions or zillions of gallons which need to go into the pool to get it to overflow, then Sandwell will have a bit more to bother about than a pool overflowing. There would have had to have been something like a biblical 40 days and 40 nights of rain, like in Noah's day.

But don't for Heaven's sake tell Sandwell that, or else this time next year, you could well find a fleet of elf and safety approved arks parked up and down West Bromwich High Street.

Trees !! What trees?

On 25th November a report, commissioned by the Forestry Commission, and entitled 'Combating Climate Change - A Role for UK Forests', was officially unveiled.

It confirms what most people have understood for years, namely that trees are not only good to look at, but also good for the environment. More particularly, trees and the provision of more trees, are seen to be one of the ways of combating climate change.

Quite apart from the fact that the report was written by, and attributed to, a number of expert people and bodies, it also has the endorsement of Rt Hon Hilary Benn, MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

He is reported as saying 'The Government welcomes Professor Read's report and as a nation we need to plant a very large number of trees over the next 40 years to tackle climate change by bringing down our carbon emissions.'

Imagine his disappointment then if he ever goes to a place called Sandwell Valley where they are chopping trees down as fast as they can.

Sandwell MDC is located just off the north western side of Birmingham. Until recently it was most famed for its resident football club, West Bromwich Albion. But the Council, reported last year as being one of the worst 4 councils in England, is now probably equally well known for its disasterous £52+ million art gallery 'The Public'. I won't elaborate on that here - it's well documented elsewhere!

But Sandwell does, of course, have redeeming features, not the least of which are its wonderfully responsive traffic lights (which could teach Birmingham a thing or two). Another feature, which is perhaps not quite as well known as it deserves to be, is a place called Sandwell Valley.

Sandwell Valley is an area of 2,000 acres or so of what used to be unspoilt woodland; lakes, and fields, with an RSPB reserve; priory ruins and a couple of farms thrown in. You can walk for miles and, OK, the M5-M6 link road goes right through it, but evenso, it's been a wonderful chunk of peaceful countryside, so close to the Midlands' big towns, for years and years.

That's all changing.

In the last 18 months Sandwell District Council have caused a huge number of trees to be felled, ranging from 100 year old poplar and mature willow to saplings.

And the destruction continues. Some 50 trees are currently marked with red paint and a further 40 or so with white paint. These will soon, presumably, join the other similarly marked trees that have been felled in the last 2 weeks.

Why, you may ask, is this destruction going on?

Various reasons are given.

1)Woods conceal gays; doggers; druggies; murderers, etc and so for 'public safety' reasons some need to be removed.

2)12 sparkling new 'water safety points' round a lake (Swan Pool) need 24 hour surveillance to prevent the local lads from playing with them. So a CCTV camera has been erected on a boat house near the lake and all trees between it and the safety points have been removed, for 'security reasons', to give a clear line of sight.

3)The poplars had become 'unsafe' so every one of them (50) were given the chop.

4)'Nothing has been done to the woodlands for years' so they are being 'thinned out' to let more light in.

5) 'They want a Green Flag'

But, however valid the reasons given may be (and, of course, some or all may not be valid at all) the result, in terms of trees, is that there are fewer. Not only fewer, but fewer of some old and magnificent trees which would take more than a generation to replace.

So what's this about a Green Flag that 'they' want - and, indeed, have now got.

Well, a scheme was launched in 1996 to recognise and reward the best green spaces in the country. 'It is also seen as a way of encouraging others to achieve high environmental standards.' per keepbritaintidy.org/greenflag.

Sandwell Valley has this year been awarded the Green Flag.

But why, you may ask, with such widespread destruction of the woodlands, and who is it that has made the award.

The answer to that is interesting.

The Green Flag Award scheme is managed by two organisations:-

(1) the Green Flag Advisory Board about which I have been able to establish nothing. The page, on the official web site, which is entitled 'The Green Flag Advisory Board' is blank!!
(2) the Civic Trust, on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Ho ho!!

So, Hilary, you better send your boys round to ODPM and find out why they are dishing out awards to places which are chopping down the very things which you think 'we need to plant a very large number of ....'.

Finally, and most depressingly, Sandwell have to-day posted a notice entitled 'Looking after your Countryside'. This contains a sentence starting 'Recently you may have heard the sound of chainsaws ....', followed by 'A chainsaw is a fast and efficient way of managing large areas of woodland.'

Saints preserve us!!

Hilary, there is not a moment to be lost.

Greedy Bankers? Really?

It was only a few years ago that the annual Bankers' bonuses were good newspaper and TV news fodder. By 'good' I mean the kind of subject that was reported with a mixture of admiration and awe, and in the case of TV coverage, rolls of the presenters' eyes heavenwards.

We, the masses, soaked up the superlatives with some envy, but nevertheless enjoyed learning of the £x,000 bottles of wine that were being quaffed, and new Ferraris that were about to be wrecked, on the strength of these bonuses.

Now I may be wrong, but I don't recall hearing Alistair Darling, or Mr Brown, as the Chancellor then was, protesting at the size, or even the existence of these bonuses then. I am pretty sure that Vince All Wisdom Cable didn't have anything to say either. Nor George Osborne, though, to be fair, he was probably still at school.

So what's changed? How come that, since the global financial upheaval, these bonuses have become not only noticed by our politicians, but positively frowned upon?

Is it that the legal framework, the contracts of employment under which the bonuses have been paid, have become less legal? Doesn't sound likely does it? I don't recall hearing anyone say that the law has changed.

Is it, then, that the politicians have seen the light, and have had a Saul moment on the road to Damascus, or wherever politicians go? Have they realised that income, beyond a certain limit, is not only unnecessary, but quite bad for you and should be stopped?

'Welllll', as Jeremy Paxman would say, apparently not. I mean, they haven't complained about footballers' salaries and sponsorship. They have made no adverse comment, that I have heard, concerning the Captains of Industry; television celebrities; Tony Blair (reportedly!); Simon Cowell etc etc raking in their millions.

So is it simply that our trusted and highly respected politicians, who are well noted for their probity in all things fiscal, simply believe that some of the bankers are just getting more than they should do for the job.

Welllllll, this is not really a possibility either. If the politicians believe in a free market economy (and I grant you that, apart from self-preservation, it's hard to know what politicians believe in nowadays), then the remuneration packages reflect just what someone is prepared to pay, and no more!

So. We have a real conundrum.

If the bonuses are not illegal; not too big, and in line with market forces, why have the politicians taken such a dislike to bankers?

I think the answer lies in politicians' need always to be seen to be doing something constructive. It is part of their self-promotion, and, hence, self-preservation regime.

Now, I would be prepared to bet that there is not a single member of the House of Commons, including, obviously, the cabinet and the shadow cabinet, that has held a senior post in a bank. This being the case, our MPs and Ministers, who have no practical experience of running a bank, cannot possibly contribute, in any meaningful way, to the resolution of the multi-national financial problems which we have seen during the last 18 months or so.

But, for their own interests, they need to be seen to be doing something.

So what do they do?

They nibble around the edges of the problem and declare, with much huffing and puffing, that our UK bankers, and their bonuses lie at the heart of the matter.

And their answer to these international problems?

Chopping UK bankers' bonuses will go a long way to sorting things out!!!!!!

And, of course, this is just what, they think, the electorate wants to hear.

We are not sufficiently educated to understand the finer points of sub-prime mortgages; toxic debts; exchange rates. But, yippeee, we all understand multi-million pound bonuses, which are something that a few bankers get that we don't.

That's got to be a vote getter.

Saving energy

We in Birmingham are expert in the art of installation of all kinds of controlled crossings, be they pedestrian or otherwise, because we have so many of them. I would like to say that they mushroom, but that analogy would not be suitable given that mushrooms appear within a few days, whereas our crossings take at best weeks if not months to complete.

It is, I suppose, because of the exposure to the ever-growing number of crossings, that a couple of thoughts have occurred to me. They seem so obvious that I am surprised nobody has promulgated them before. Maybe they have and I missed it, or maybe I have just got the wrong end of the stick because I'm not always right.

However, for what it's worth, here are my bright ideas.

Given that we are all being exalted to save energy, and reduce waste, thereby saving yet more energy:-

1) Why are pedestrian crossing traffic signals always on? I can understand the red and green men always being on so that pedestrians have no excuse for being run over, and the respective Local Authority's hands are nice and clean when the do! But I do not understand why the red/amber/green traffic signals are always on. The only one of these which is of importance to the driver is the red one. So why, during the long periods of traffic signal ’green’, are they simply not switched off. When a pedestrian presses the button to cross, the traffic signals can come on ‘green’ and cycle to amber and red as usual. After the period for the pedestrians to cross has expired, the traffic signals would cycle red and amber to green as usual, and after an agreed time, of say 1 minute, switch off completely. Thus for most of the night, if not, indeed, most of the day as well, the traffic signals would be off, thereby saving energy and cost. Simple.

Which brings me to my other point….

2) Why do pedestrian crossings have so many sets of traffic signals these days? Gone are the days when one set of three (red, amber, green) on each side of the road was deemed adequate. Now we, in Birmingham, (I can’t speak for other places), have not one or two or even three sets of signals, but FIVE on each side ie 10 per crossing – some on top of others!! Just think of the mouth-watering energy savings that are waiting to be had if we switched off these little babies for most of each day!

Actually there's a good argument to be made for having most ordinary traffic lights switched off except at certain (maybe rush hour) times. The amount of fuel wasted by vehicles sitting waiting at traffic lights on Sunday mornings; nights etc must be considerable and probably in direct proportion to the shortening in length of the drivers' patience while they sit looking at empty roads.

My first Blog

Well, after much thought I have finally decided to write a blog.

I don't know what 'blog' stands for - maybe it's an acronym - and I don't know who, if anyone, will ever read it. However, on the off-chance that someone will, I must own up at once to writing under a pseudonym.

The blog creation process didn't ask for my name but merely the name under which the blog would be signed. So I assumed that pseudonyms are acceptable. If they are not then I expect to be deleted; expunged; hanged, or whatever, in very short order -- and rightly so!

What can be expected to appear in my blog?

Well, occasionally I have good ideas, although I accept that I'm not always right. I have written to the Sunday Times once and the Daily Mail a couple of times but neither have thought my submissions worth printing or even following up. So there's a good indication that there is probably not much point in anyone following this blog. I mean if the Daily Mail thinks I'm rubbish, then I really have to be at the bottom of the pile.

Apart from my good ideas, I have fairly strong views about certain Local Authorities. I live in Birmingham, England, and observe at close quarters the workings of both Birmingham and neighbouring Sandwell. I will be writing about things which these Authorities do, which, in my opinion, are unnecessary; unwise; foolish or just downright unforgivable.

For now, however, I will confine myself to this fairly basic introduction.

John Oaks