'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?