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'?