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.
