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.

RIP Dartmouth Park - IX

Well, as forecast earlier this week, all of the willows, on one side of the Dartmouth Park main lake, have been rased to the ground.

This means that there is nothing on that side of the lake now so it looks fairly similar to one of its adjacent sides where all of the oaks were cut down last year - leaving nothing.

The other adjacent side was, historically, a sunken bowling green. Whilst no bowls have, I think, been played there for many a long year, the groundsmen had maintained the green to what appeared to be a very high standard. It provided a cool, safe place for youngsters to play in the summer

But this must have posed something of a problem to the expert park restorers at Sandwell.

Here was something, obviously oldish, if not original, and kept in good, if not excellent, order. How could such a desirable amenity possibly be allowed to stay unless it was properly; lovingly and expertly restored? And how could it be restored because as it wasn't a tree, it couldn't be chopped down.

Well, tax payers of Sandwell, and everywhere else, and National Lottery players everywhere, just go down on your knees and give thanks for the cumulative experience and wisdom of the Sandwell intelligentia and their manifold consultants.

'Of course you can't chop a sunken bowling green down,' they reasoned, 'but you can fill it in. Eureka!!!!'

So that's what they've done - almost.

It looks a bit like a landfill site (which, I suppose, is exactly what it now is) with much rubbish and debris in evidence. But credit where credit's due. By this simple, but effective means, Sandwell and the National Lottery have wrecked the third side of the main Dartmouth Park lake.

This means that there is only 1 side of the lake as yet untouched by the restorers, and believe me, there are some really tasty willows along it. They should keep Sandwell's arboreal reduction consultants busy for at least a couple of weeks.

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PS There's some exciting news tomorrow .............

RIP Dartmouth Park - VIII

Anyone remember these three massive trees?

They were the three on the bank between the main pool in Dartmouth Park and the tennis courts.

Did you note the tense?

Yes, that's right. 'Were'

To-day at about 1.00pm the furthest had been cut to the ground. The centre one had all of its branches removed and a team of experts working on removing the main trunk.

No doubt by this time tomorrow the third will also have become history.

To those of us who marvel at trees that have stood for generations and generations, it seems wicked that, on a whim, a handful of faceless people, buried deep somewhere in Sandwell, can remove all trace of them.

It also seems absurd in the extreme that such destruction is taking place in an area designated as parkland. And, of course, if this continues, it will cease to be parkland, and simply become, land.

Well, maybe, in due course, I will be able to bring you photos of featureless land at Sandwell.

Wasteland in a land of waste.