From little acorns big trees grow - Part 2 -- P.S.

I said I couldn't understand why so many shrubs had been ripped out when a yard wide path was 'surfaced' on the old walkway which runs parallel to Park Lane.

I do now.

Yet another of the man-made plaited fences, of which Sandwell seem to have some sort of fetish, is being installed in the 'Country Park'.

So the one-time country-like lane now has the Park Lane traffic and a plaited fence on one side and a barbed wire topped fence on the other!!

I wonder which country Sandwell has as its model for the Sandwell Valley Country Park.

Afghanistan?

The last 2 photos are of a gate from Park Lane into the Valley.

It used to be a wooden gate, in harmony with its surroundings, until Sandwell decided to replace it with a brashly painted yellow and green metal one, and for some reason, known only to the Sandwell Gate Installation Secretariat, a height restiriction beam was installed at the same time. The mind boggles at what the rationale could possibly be for installing a height restriction beam at the entrance to a few hundred acres of fields, but that's Sandwell for you. They don't do things by halves.

Anyway, to facilitate the smooth entrance to and egress from the site of plant concerned with the path creation/surfacing, it was deemed necessary to remove the height restriction beam which was placed on the ground, in tacta, to one side of the gateway, presumably awaiting re-erection when the works were finished.

Oh no!

The works have been finished, apparently, but the height restriction beam has not been re-erected.

It still lies on the ground.

But Lo! A new height restriction beam has been installed in it's stead.

This one has a removable top.

Maybe some forward-thinking member of the Sandwell Gate Installation Secretariat is allowing for the possibility that at some stage in the future it may be desirable that another vehicle of some size be admitted to the site at that point. The forward thinker may have gone on to reason that, in such a circumstance, it would be less costly and more convenient to have a removable top rather than to have to dig the whole thing up and replace it for a third time.

As an alternative to all of this Sandwell rumination, I would have proposed, if asked, that, as the height restriction beam served no useful purpose, the cost of a second installation could have been avoided completely.

But this is Sandwell and they don't do things by halves.

Having wasted somebody's money on the first erection, Sandwell seem perfectly at ease with themselves in wasting some more money the second time round.

But 'Ah!' the forward thinker may have said. 'You have not understood why the beam was erected in the first place. And, to be fair, there's no reason why you should. We in the Sandwell Gate Installation Secretariat have been specially selected for our wide experience in all things defensive.'

Suddenly I feel humbled.

'But,' the forward thinker may have continued,'we are always happy to share our expertise with ordinary people and I can tell you that the primary reason for the height restriction beam was to prevent unauthorised access by, shall we say, caravans or tarmac trucks or such like. You get my drift??'.

Indeed I would have got his drift.

But I still wouldn't have understood the logic, because there are no height restriction beams at the Salter's Lane entrance to the site (as evidenced by the Pat Collins fair which rolls in each year) and from there, there is access, via the 2 motorway bridges to almost everywhere on the site.

QED

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