From little acorns big trees grow - except at Sandwell Valley.

At the end of Swan Pool nearest the boat house there used to be 50 or so 100 year old poplars and sundry other old and (some of them) enormous other kinds of tree. That was until 2008 when Sandwell had them cut down for reasons documented elsewhere in this blog.

Some of the affected trees have defiantly started growing again but, sadly, about 1/3 of the poplars are dead.

Well, last Friday, when in that same vicinity, I heard the sound of chainsaws!

Upon checking, I found a crew of Acorn chaps setting about a willow tree.

I took a quick photo so that I could compare it with the blank space which I fully expected to be the outcome, based on previous Sandwell performance.

Imagine my surprise then when the following day I noticed that the willow was still there, allbeit in much reduced form - decimated is, for once, probably correctly used in this context.

But there was something different which I didn't immediately spot.

And that 'something' was the whole of 2 trees on the other side of the little path. They had just gone - literally rased to the ground. You can see that the tree on the extreme left in the first photo just isn't there in the second.

A crying shame.

These trees were old; out of the way; no trouble to anyone, and were not in the CCTV's line of sight.

Why on Earth do Sandwell pursue such utterly needless destruction?

Why has Sandwell destroyed, and continues to destroy, so much that is good?

Why does Sandwell pay subcontractors to carry out unnecessary work at a time when it should be conserving its resources?

Why does Sandwell exist at all?

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A bit more 're-profiling' at Sandwell

Take a look at the first photo and note the dense hawthorn hedge along the pathway.
This hedge has been trimmed and nurtured for a good 20 years - probably much longer.
Fortunately I had this photo in my archives because without any notice, and by this I mean without the self-congratulatory notices that Sandwell sometimes put up, the hawthorn started to disappear.

Not only that, but also a good number of the trees behind it, and all of the hedge behind those.

The result is the second photo.

No Hedges. Far fewer trees. And another of those plaited fences which Sandwell seem to have a fetish about.

This 're-profiling' started just before a dog show took place close by and as I was walking past, what were then, piles of freshly hewn timber, a lady, who was exhibiting her pooch at the show, arrested me and demanded to know why the trees were being cut down. I said 'Well, it's Sandwell here. That's what they do.'

'But,' she said,' they were cutting down trees last year when we were here.'

'That's right,' I reassured her. 'That's what Sandwell do. It's something they are very good at and they have got a Green Flag for it. Sandwell have cut down hundreds of mature trees in the last few years and, if you include saplings, the number would run into thousands.'

She didn't seem to be very reassured and started telling me that she came from some forest or other where they are planting trees. So I told her that we don't do that sort of thing here. Here, Sandwell already have some forests, they don't need to plant any, so they cut them down instead. It finds something for the rangers to do, and for the green management to manage. It also provides something for the subcontractors to do, and for the Community Pay Back people hack around, and for the Monday volunteers who 'engage' with Sandwell (I think that is the Green Flag requirement) and chop a few smallish trees and hedges down in between coffee breaks.

Somehow, I don't think she'll be back!

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Forge Mill Lake II

Well. It didn't take long.

A couple of days, in fact, was all it took to 're-profile' the north island.

A case of now you see it - now you don't.

What a terrible waste of nature. 25 years in the growing thrown away in 2 days at the whim of Sandwell and the Environment Agency.

And all for some ridiculouly claimed benefit for birds which, I guess, most of Sandwell Council wouldn't recognise if they fell over them.

I say 'claimed' because it just has to be a nonsense. How, one asks oneself, did ground nesting birds, such as lapwings, possibly manage this last umpteen hundred years without Sandwell and the Environment Agency 're-profiling' islands for them?

The answer is 'perfectly well, thank you.'

So who do Sandwell and the Environment Agency think they are kidding?

Well us, appparently. They are certainly no fools themselves. In fact, I think that this is all part of a grand job creation scheme which Sandwell have slipped in over the last 6 or 7 years at Sandwell Valley.

I don't know how Sandwell square this, with their announcement this week that another 1,000 jobs have got to go because they can't afford them.

Maybe Unison, well known for its commitment to lapwings, understands, and can explain in ways which the ordinary man can understand.

And another thing.

The Environment Agency.

Is it somehow related to Sandwell? Or are they just bedfellows of kindred spirit?

I must research this because I am pretty sure that the Environment Agency was implicated in the farcical additional run-off at Sandwell (see my post 14th December, 2009). I didn't photograph the notice that was displayed at that time so I can't prove it. If I am wrong, I apologise in advance - but I think I'm right!

If I am right, then the run-off and the 're-profiled' island would seem to indicate a penchant of Sandwell and the Environment Agency for spending money unnecessarily on daft and environmentally damaging projects.

Come on Mr Cameron, let's see what you're made of.

Why don't you scrap Sandwell and the Environment Agency and see if anybody notices?

Forge Mill Lake

The UK; Europe; the USA and sundry other countries are entering the third year of one of the most serious financial situations the world has seen.

Many of these countries have run up massive debts, and all have seen their national outputs decline to levels which have necessarily required cuts in national and local government expenditures.

The old fashioned term for this is living within your means.

So how is Sandwell MBC shouldering its responsibilities in these stringently demanding times?

Well it's doing what it does best - wasting money and destroying the environment at the same time.

My return from the summer recess was, I had hoped, going to be a routine picking up of the threads.

Sadly, this proved not to be the case as I found carnage being carried out in Sandwell Valley - but I will catalogue that in later posts because the Forge Mill Lake business vastly outstrips the scale of destruction in Sandwell Valley in both its scope and audacity.

Would you believe that at a time when most of the world is reeling from financial shockwaves, and taking Draconian measures just to try and stay afloat, Sandwell is spending money on encouraging ground nesting birds to inhabit an island.

Laughable isn't it!

At least it would be if it were not so stupid.

And, of course, the great bonus for Sandwell is 'the removal of all woody vegetation', and just to prove how much Sandwell is relishing this, they have the pictured machine to ensure maximum eradication with the minimum of effort - at a cost, of course.

I have many photos of the area concerned and will in due course post the usual before and after shots.

'This will provide a valuable and rare habitat....' trumpets the Sandwell notices.

Valuable?

I think 'expensive' or 'unnecessarily expensive' would better adjectives.

Rare?

How about 'bloody' or 'half baked'?

Dartmouth Park Restoration - IX

Hooray !!

The concrete steps are open !!!!

Well, half open anyway.

Or half closed.

More likely, Sandwell MBC don't know whether they are open or closed.

Maybe some senior Sandwellian thought (OK, unlikely, but give him the benefit of the doubt) while he was ruminating over his tea and ginger biscuits, that as the school summer holidays started yesterday (23rd July), some people who visited last year, might remember this year that they couldn't get from the car park to Darmouth park last year. And maybe this person had another thought, (phew!) that if the people who visited last year and this year realised that they still couldn't get from the car park into Dartmouth park, then these people might ask themselves what Sandwell had been doing for the last 12 months.

(A question which regulars ask themselves all the time. And not only 'what?' but more pertinently 'why?')

So, it's just possible that the senior Sandwellian felt sufficiently senior to authorise the opening of the gates to the concrete steps in order that the people who visited this year and last year would not realise that access to Dartmouth park from the car park had indeed been unavailable not just for a year, but nearer 15 months.

No need, he might have thought, for a full council meeting to approve this. But, just in case some of its more bellicose members should object, better to open only one of the gates and not both of them. This way it could be claimed that the concrete steps were merely 'on test' pending a full risk assessment by the Sandwell MBC Health and Safety Secretariat, while the necessary safety signs, such as 66 'Mind the Step' signs were being prepared. (That's 33 for each step up and 33 for each step down!)

You think I'm joking?

I'll have you know that the Sandwell MBC Health and Safety Secretariat take all things most seriously which might, however vaguely, impinge on the unsuspecting; untrained and unwary public.

Evidence?

A kiddies play area entitled 'Sandwell by the Sea' has been created in Sandwell Valley.

It contains a few inflatable slides; a hot dog stall; a sand pit and one or two other things. It's a bit of a swizz really because signs at the entrances to the area proclaim 'Entrance Free' but it's not until you are inside that you realise you have to pay for almost everything with money or tokens which cost 80p each.

Anyway, once again, I digress.

One of the attractions is a sizeable inflated oblong pool which contains a foot or so of water and 10 little boats for kiddies to float around in.

A sign at the entrance to this screams out 'Warning. Children may get wet'

Praise the Lord and all at the Sandwell MBC Health and Safety Secretariat.

If they didn't do this sign themselves, then their influence has certainly spread far and wide.

Dartmouth Park Restoration - VIII

Well, another 3 weeks on since my last offering, and still the 'Sandwell concrete step' saga meanders on.

By last time, the missing bits of the railing had turned up, and the whole 'construction' stood, forlornly, looking, from a distance, for all the world like scaffolding, as though the thing wasn't finished.

Perish the thought.

But Lo!

Along came a man and painted it. Or, actually, along came a man several times and painted it, or maybe he just missed a few places the first, and second, times.

Now, the railings proudly surmount the concrete steps, splendid in their Public Lavatory High Gloss Green, a tribute to all who have so diligently designed; planned and toiled these many long months in the furtherance of excellence.

Wasn't it someone in Sandwell, or maybe it was Chartwell, who said 'Never in the field of human endeavour has so much time and money been spent, by so many, achieving so little,' - or something like that.

And it isn't over yet.

The architectural inspiration continues to pour forth.

Something is happening on the lefthand side of the concrete steps, just where the elegant stone stairway graced the incline before the Sandwellian intelligentia tore it down.

Great piles of soil have appeared.

Now one of two things is happening here. Either some dipstick of a driver missed what used to be a sunken bowling green in Dartmouth Park until the Restoration brigade converted it to a landfill site, or Sandwell have realised their folly in destroying the stone stairway and have decided, in an attempt to make amends, to give it a decent burial.

We shall have to wait to see what transpires.

Incidentally, and off topic, Sandwell have put up a huge sign on the side of the building which is close to the newly laid out tennis courts/5-a-side football pitch.

It procalims 'The home of Football' - then in somewhat smaller letters - 'Here in Sandwell.'

Doesn't this just prove my often made point, if any further proof were needed, that Sandwell lives in its own little bubble - devoid from reality. Worse still, this sign shows that staff within the MBC live inside their own bubbles, collectively making a sort of heady froth.

How could anyone think that a part-time 5-a-side football pitch and the adjacent King George's football pitches could possibly constitute the home of anything, let alone the national sport.

And, just as a detail, hasn't anyone told the people who thought up this sign, and the other people who approved its production and display, that 1 mile from where the sign is affixed, is a place which stands a slightly better chance of claiming to be the home of football in Sandwell.

It's the football stadium of West Bromwich Albion, Premier Division Football Club.

Dartmouth Park Restoration - VII

I must apologise for not having kept up to date with my blog postings, but life has been rather hectic recently.

Those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for news of the splendid new concrete steps which Sandwell have been constructing for the last 10 months, with the help of the National Lottery, need wait no longer.

The great news is that they are, almost, finished.

And the even greater news is that the handrails, which for so long didn't seem to feature at all in the design, have at last made an entrance. And to be fair to Sandwell, they appeared, one sunny day, about 3 weeks ago.

Actually, it is more accurate to say that most of them appeared about 3 weeks ago.

For some reason, the top section on one side wasn't installed then.

It looked like another metaphor for Sandwell MBC, ie something which appeared not to be quite all there, and badly in need of finishing off.

But Halleluja!! Last week the missing bits turned up and are now in place.

Of course, the concrete steps are still not open to the public. There's probably going to be a Grand Opening by the Mayor, like the one Sandwell had in March to celebrate the opening of the Main Avenue and Drinking Fountain. If you're lucky, there might be a jazz band as well, and refreshments - just like last time.

But then again, you might have to wait a while yet.

Last November, when I was commenting on the incredibly slow progress of the destruction of the stone stairway and construction of the concrete steps, I, somewhat tongue in cheek, said that at the then rate of progress it could be this March before it was finished. I added, even more tongue in cheek, that allowing for the Winter months, it could be August before Sandwell lumbered to some sort of a concluion.

Well, dear readers, March started just over 3 months ago, and August starts in a little under 2!!!!!!!!

You can write the next bit yourselves!

Dartmouth Park Restoration - VI

Well well well.

It's barely 6 weeks since I wrote my last blog on the subject of the new concrete steps at Dartmouth Park which Sandwell have (almost) built next to where a perfectly good stone stairway was before they demolished it in the name of 'Restoration.'

Eventhough the new concrete steps appeared to be complete 6 weeks ago, they have not been made available for use by the public.

This suggests that perhaps they were not complete after all.

In support of this theory is the fact that 2 days ago a number of men were seen to be making holes in the brand new side walls.

I have previously reported that I had been told that, the closest thing you can get to the horse's mouth on this project had said, there were to be no handrails.

However, these nice new holes in the side walls seem to suggest that there are to be some after all - albeit 6 weeks (and counting) after the concrete steps seemed otherwise to have been finished.

Could it be that some ordinary person (not an expert or architect or anything like that) in Sandwell read my blog and concurred with my view that the steps, in their then form, were lots of accidents waiting to happen?

I would like to think so, but I doubt it.

Why?

Because this is Sandwell we are talking about, and although I had been dropping hints since late last year, I didn't actually say that I thought someone had forgotten the handrails until 29th March this year. That's only 6 weeks ago and there is no way that the coterie of Sandwell planners; designers; architects; health and safety experts; procurement officers; fabricators; installation contractors; councillors etc etc etc could organise something as major as a couple of handrails in 6 weeks.

I conclude, therefore, that my original information about the handrails being deliberately designed out, was incorrect.

Or was it?

If the handrails were designed in from the outset, why has it taken until now for a start to be made on installing them?

And where are the holes for the rail which needs to go down the centre of the steps?

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Is Birmingham shrinking?

Last September (2010), all of the bushes and practically all of the trees were chopped down on either side of the river Tame where the bridge crosses it by Forge Mill Farm in Sandwell.

Photos 1 and 2 show a before and after of one side -- the side I am interested in.

In the last few weeks, and particularly in the last 2 weeks, all of the bushes and most of the trees have been chopped down on a sizeable piece of land adjacent to that shown in photos 1 and 2.

Photos 3 and 4 show the 'after' situation - the pale patches on the ground being the shredded left overs of the former trees. Prior to the chopping and shredding, the area was a dense block of greenery. Now, as can be seen, a distant car park looms large.

Followers of by blog will not be at all surprised by this. Sandwell have during the past 3 or 4 years chopped down hundreds of mature trees; thousands of saplings and hundreds of yards of mature hedgerows - all in the facile name of 'looking after your countryside.'

But this one is a bit different.

Reason?

Because these trees and bushes were on land owned by the City of Birmingham.

See my somewhat amateurish map and note the two green patches which designate the sites concerned, and note also the red line which marks what I understand to be the County boundary.

The destruction of the environment is just the thing that Sandwell is so good at. Sandwell Valley even has a Green Flag in recognition of Sandwell's especially green credentials.

Bravo!

However, suspicions alone, that Sandwell is the perpetrator of this latest crime against the environment, are insufficient to indict Sandwell.

But as luck would have it, last Saturday (2nd April, 2011) a hapless bunch of Community Pay Back people were at the site doing minor choppings and shifting pieces of old fencing. So I asked one of them what he was doing and who he was doing it for.

He told me it was Sandwell!!!!!

QED.

So, Birmingham, what's going on?

Has Sandwell accidentally strayed, like lost sheep, into Birmingham without realising it?

Is Sandwell carrying out these 'cleansing' works with Birmingham's knowledge? Nudge nudge - wink wink!

Has Birmingham sold the Hill Top Golf Club, to which this land is adjacent, to Sandwell, as was rumoured last year?

Or did the Community Pay Back chap get it wrong? Has Birmingham itself chopped down all of these shrubs and trees, thereby emulating Sandwell in its destructive practices, and if so, why?

Dartmouth Park Restoration - V

Further to yesterday's post, I am now, as promised, going to let those of you know, who have not already sussed it out, what is missing from the concrete steps shown in the top photo.

This omision will come as no surprise to the upper echelons of Sandwell MDC who appoint and preside over the experts who designed the steps.

But it came as a great surprise to me - particularly as I vividly recall the laborious business a few years ago of Sandwell digging holes in the middle of concrete slabbed steps to install a handrail.

See the bottom photo, and see the central handrail that took about a week to install. Quite why Sandwell decided to do this is unknown to me, especially as there already were handrails either side of the steps - and there are only 11 steps anyway!

See also the central handrail in the middle photo. If you can focus on the handrail, rather than lament at the sad state of those minds that conceived and authorised the destruction of the stone stairway itself, you will see the real necessity for this one. This stairway must be getting on for 20 feet in height, and being faced in stone, readily becomes slippy when wet, let alone when it has ice or snow on it.

Now look at the new flight of concrete steps.

Same height as the stone stairway. Not made of stone, but each step lovingly edged in shiny blue brick.

And where do you see the hand rail?

That's right. There isn't one.

The little flight of steps has 3 handrails.,

The stone stairway had one handrail.

The new set of concrete steps has no handrails.

Well done Sandwell, and its expert designers of steps, and its Health and Safety people.

But there is hope. I mean, be fair. Sandwell may be hopeless, but few things are completely hope less.

I'm prepared to bet that by this time next year there will be so many safety rails there that you will hardly be able to get up the steps.

It will be amazing how galvanised Sandwell will become after the first few sprained wrists; broken ankles; ricked backs and fractured crania --- and the attendant litigation.

I wonder whether not designing in handrails to a 20 foot high set of public steps amounts to negligence? If so, would the whole of Sandwell Council be liable, or only the architect?

Oh well. Not long to find out ...........

Dartmouth Park Restoration - IV

I think it's confirmed.

The concrete steps are complete. Hoorah !!!

Why do I think this?

(1)Because the builders' fencing has been removed from the car park into which the steps lead, and (2) because all of the builders' stuff has gone.

So, dear readers, it looks as though my observation last November was correct. And that was that, despite the massed intelligence of Sandwell MDC; its architect and the National Lottery, something has been missed.

However, there is a twist to this tale.

Whilst something has most definitely been missed, I have it on good authority that it has been missed not by accident -- but by design - literally!!

A well placed source said that he had noticed the same omission as myself, and queried it with an even better placed source. This even better placed source informed him that the 'omission' was known of and, by implication, was not seen as a problem.

So what is missing?

Answer - tomorrow.

To help you I have shown a photo of the original stone stairway which was located adjacent to the position of the new concrete steps until Sandwell mindlessly, unnecessarily, and expensively, ripped it out.

I have also shown a photo of a smaller set of 11 steps a short distance from the new 33 (I think) concrete steps.

Compare these photos with the first one, which is of the new concrete steps complete with shiny smooth brick edges (there's another clue for you.)

Dartmouth Park Restoration - III

Well it looks as though the builders of the concrete steps are grinding their weary way to some sort of a conclusion.

Certainly some gates have appeared and the general shape of the concrete hasn't changed much in the last few weeks.

All the signs are that the end is in sight. Which isn't bad, I suppose, if you consider it's only 7 months since Sandwell and the National Lottery started to build them -- and only (almost) a year since Sandwell destroyed the stone stairway which occupied the adjacent piece of ground.

So a huge sigh of relief all round, particularly from those people who, until a year ago, had access to Dartmouth Park from a Sandwell Valley car park.

Of course, I may be being a shade presumptious there. Sandwell being Sandwell means it doesn't necessarily follow that the gates will be opened to permit people to pass through them.

To those who have no direct knowledge of Sandwell, this may sound somewhat foolish. But there is another rather larger car park on the site which, in 2008, Sandwell painted parking bays all over and built a dividing barrier complete with lockable gate which split the car park into two pieces roughly 1/3rd and 2/3rds. Since then, for a large part of each year, and for no obvious reason, cars are restricted to the 1/3rd portion.

At Sandwell, reason and logic don't seem to exist. People just decide things, and they are done - eventually.

So if the Sandwell Intelligentia take it into their heads that they don't want people trampling all over the new concrete steps, you can be sure those shiny new gates will remain firmly locked!!

One other thing.

You may recall me suggesting, in my 8th November, 2010 post, that, just possibly, the massed intellect of Sandwell; the National Lottery, and the architect who has poured his whole life's experience and creativity into this set of concrete steps, may have missed something.

The more I look at these steps, the more convinced I become. And I recently invited a colleague to comment - having been most careful not to lead the witness in any way.

To my surprise, and gratification, after barely a few seconds study, he made exactly the same observation as I had done.

So I will wait a little longer, until I am quite sure that the concrete steps, in their present form, are complete. I mean, let's face it, this is Sandwell. They could be months yet before they finish them.

But when they are finally; definitely and absolutely finished, I will check again to see if my point is still valid.

If it is, I'll let you know then!!

'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello. What's all this 'ere then? - II

Just a follow up on the last post.

(Actually, 'the last post' seems singularly apposite for Sandwell Valley as Sandwell MDC is systematically destroying it)


As expected, another woven topped fence is being created after first chopping down all of the mature hedgerows.

This is another instance of Sandwell destroying something of natural beauty in exchange for a pointless man-made mess, at a time when non-essential spending of any sort should be being avoided.

One useful byproduct though is that there is now another clear line of sight of the M5 - M6 motorway link. Visitors to the Sandwell Country Park (as Sandwell MBC like to call it) can, therefore, appreciate this additional vista which Sandwell has opened up. It ranks equally, for sheer beauty, alongside the view from the opposite side of the motorway, which Sandwell has created by chopping all of the hedgerows, alongside the motorway, down to about 4 feet.

And, but a stone's throw away, there is a fine and unobstructed view of an electicity sub-station (see my post 30. 01.10). This was, until last year, shrouded by trees and mature hedges, but was lovingly brought into the open, when Sandwell chopped down practically all of them.

'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello. What's all this 'ere then?

What indeed?

The answer is, of course, I don't know.

I mean, on the face of it there is a perfectly good fence, not on a roadway or pathway, but, sort of, round a corner, being taken apart.









Here are a couple more photos 2 days later.



If I was to hazard a guess as to what was going on, I would say that Sandwell are creating yet another piece of 'woven topped' fencing. If this is the case, it is, by my count, the eighth such in the last 3 years. All of the former fences have been, to a greater or lesser extent, taken apart by passers by, including the one completed only last week which, I note, already has a piece neatly cut out of it.

The idea is that Sandwell first of all takes down perfectly good fencing; then chops the top 6 or 8 feet off mature hedgerows and trees that are growing behind said fence; and finally gets some sub-contractor to hammer in a row of wooden stakes and plait some willowy type material along the top of the stakes, having first 'layered' what's left of the original hedgerows.

The result is, in the immediate short term, an obviously man-made intrusion into natural surroundings, and in the longer term, a mess of partly demolished fencing, and no hedgerows at all.

I will keep an eye on progress, if that is the word, and report later on the outcome of the current works.

Anyone for tennis ?

Way back in April, 2010, I took a photo of the wall between Sandwell Valley and Dartmouth park. It's the top one here. Behind it are a couple of hard core tennis courts.


For some reason, which I haven't yet determined, Sandwell took it into their heads to demolish this wall and rebuild it 2 or 3 yards away from where it was. Someone said they thought it was because it was unsafe, but I don't think that can be the case, firstly because it seemed to be a dickens of a job knocking it down, and secondly because a long stretch of identical walling has been merely repointed.

Anyway, I digress.


The second photo shows the position of the new, more or less identical wall. But the knock-on effect of moving the wall was to chop 2 or 3 yards off one side of the tennis courts. Sandwell were, of course, quick to spot that budding Black Country McEnroes could,thereby, be disadvantaged. So what are the Sandwellians doing about it? They are adding a couple of yards onto the opposite side of the courts. (photos 3 and 4)

(If you take a bit off one side of a quadrilateral, and add some on the opposite side, is that what's called lateral thinking?)

A master stroke indeed.

But at no small cost, because the couple of yards that are being added onto the tennis courts are coming off the adjacent Crazy Golf course.

This course was completely relaid out less than a year ago, and part of the reconfiguration involved its length being reduced. Now its width has shrunk as well!

But I don't want to prejudge the Sandwell intelligentia here. It could well be that they have thought this through quite thoroughly, and that they have a plan to widen the opposite side of the Crazy Golf course by moving the adjacent internal road over a couple of yards.

This could easily be accomplished, particularly if the adjacent field was also moved over a couple of yards.

In fact, if the Lottery could stump up another £4 million, the whole of Sandwell Valley could be moved over a couple of yards, thereby assuring the jobs of the Sandwellians in perpetuity.

Belts tightening (almost) everywhere

As the measures designed to deal with The deficit begin to unfold, people; businesses and organisations all over the country are tightening their belts.

Many people will lose their jobs. Many businesses will go to the wall. Speed cameras are being switched off; some swimming baths and libraries are closing; some street and motorway lights are to be switched off. Everyone is, or if they're not, they soon will be, feeling the pinch.

Everyone, that is, except good old Sandwell, the wasteland which is full of waste.

Sandwell continues to float blithely along in its bubble, isolated from, or, more likely, in denial of, what's going on in the rest of the world.

Another example?

OK

This week Sandwell have chopped down a perfectly good line of small tees/large shrubs at the entrance to the Swan Pool car park, and converted it into a woven topped fence.

Such would be quite unnecessary at any time. Indeed, it has created yet another eyesore where nature formerly did a perfectly adequate job and in a most aesthetic way.

But to do it now, when responsible councils are checking every last penny spent, right down to their usage of paper clips, it shows just how out of touch Sandwell is.

Add to this the fact that during the last 3 or 4 years Sandwell have 'created' 7 more of these fences in Sandwell Valley, and all of them have been taken apart to a greater or lesser extent by ne'er-do-wells. One of these fences (the first one) was actually replaced by Sandwell last year by a conventional wooden fence!!

You would think that someone at Sandwell would have learnt some sort of a lesson by now.

I wonder how long it will be before this latest habitat destroying; waste of money of an eyesore is similarly dismantled?

What have Morrison's and Sandwell MDC got in common?

Absolutely nothing!

No. That's not true.

Morrison and Sandwell have the same number of letters.

So for 'absolutely nothing' please read 'very little.'

But there are many very real differences.

For example - Income.

Morrison's gets its income from providing goods and services, of a type and quality, for which people are prepared to pay. Morrison's is sufficiently successful in this activity that after deducting all of its expenses, and taxes paid to central government, from the income, it has money left over to enable continued investment in new stores, and refurbishment of existing stores, thereby assuring its future.

Sandwell gets almost all of its income from local tax payers; central government; and organisations like the Arts Council and the National Lottery. It doesn't have to be successful in any commercial way. It doesn't have to provide anything that people are prepared to pay for.

That is just one example (albeit a very obvious one) of the difference between Morrison's and Sandwell.

And here's another one - particularly relevant to to-day.

Construction.

Morrison's have informed me (because I asked!) that the Enabling Works (whatever those are) for its new Holyhead Road store, ran from April, 2010 to July, 2010, and the main contract for construction ran from July, 2010 until January, 2011.

As reported in an earlier post, the store was opened, on schedule, to-day.

10 months to build, from a flat piece of ground, a complete supermarket; fit out; stock and open.

Meanwhile, a couple of miles away, Sandwell is working on a construction of its own. No, this is not a supermarket, but a set of concrete steps.

The first photo above was taken on 19th April, 2010, and the second, yesterday, 30th January, 2011.

The first photo was taken just after Sandwell, as part of its 'restoration' of Dartmouth Park, had started destroying a stone stairway, and it was taken at around the same time as Morrison's had started its 'Enabling Works'.

The second photo is also part of Sandwell's restoration work. It is a set of concrete steps, built to replace the stone stairway, the bottom of which is about 2 metres away from where the original stairway was.

So in the same time that Morrison's have built; fitted out; stocked and opened a supermarket, Sandwell has demolished a stone stairway and (not quite) built a replacement set of concrete steps!!!!!!

Anyone want any more differences, or are these 2 enough?

Hooray!! A new Morrisons !!

These aren't very good photos because the sun was in the wrong place. That's my excuse anyway.

But that doesn't take the shine of the wonderful reality that a new Morrisons has opened to-day, 31st January, 2011, very close to the West Bromwich Albion football ground.

To be honest, I don't know whether it's in Birmingham or Sandwell - the boundary is there somewhere close. If I had to guess, I'd say it was Birmingham because the traffic light controlled junction there never was very good, and now the Morisson's entry/exit has been incorporated, it has become a nightmare. And this is based only on a late morning observation. Tonight's rush hour, and the first football match will show just how awful this junction is going to be.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, one of Sandwell's redeeming features is its traffic lights. They are so responsive to traffic, and, more importantly, to the absence of traffic, and they operate as though someone has actually thought about traffic flows before they installed them.

Anyway, all that aside, to those of us whose nearest Morrison's were Wednesbury or somewhere down the Coventry Road, this is a wonderful day and one which should be spent purchasing some of Morrison's excellent meat. They have other good things too, of course, but their meat is absolutely first class.