(You're) Welcome to Sandwell Valley Country Park

The last 3 months have seen an unprecedented assault on the trees and bushes at Sandwell Valley.

Sandwell have felled thousands of trees in Sandwell Valley during the last 6 or 7 years, but the last 3 months has seen the most concentrated and most widespread devastation yet.

The above photos show the former solid block of trees and shrubs at one end of Swan Pool having  been razed to the ground. For the entire length of the Pool, almost all of the vegetation is gone. A tractor with attachments has been grinding away at the last vestiges of  plant life and the area is reduced to soil level.

The internal pathway which runs parallel to Park Lane, most of which was 'surfaced' last year, now has nothing between it and Park Lane (above) for most of its length, most trees and all low level vegetation having been removed. It was always possible to hear passing traffic - now you can see it as well -- and a barbed wire topped fence on the other side of the path.

And the above refers to only 2 locations at the Valley, There are many more where chunks of woodland have become flat ground in the last 2 or 3 months and where mature trees and underlying vegetation have been wiped out.

Horrific is the word.

Most of the recent clearance work has been carried out by contractors, and they certainly went at it with enthusiasm. But there are 3 other groups of people (that I know of - there may well be more) who devote their time to cutting down trees and shrubs. There are the Community Pay-Back people (as long as the weather is OK); a band of local volunteers who hack around under the supervision of the Sandwell Rangers, and there is another small outfit who's minibus claims to be en route to a brighter environment - or something like that.

With so many organisations engaged in cutting things down at Sandwell Valley, it is hardly surprising that the place is melting away like the snow in sunshine.

And why do I care?

Well quite apart from the fact that it was the only place remotely like unspoilt countryside anywhere near Birmingham, it pretty much reflected my life.

As a boy, I was brought to Sandwell Valley with my brother and we played there and looked at the animals. Later, I took my girl friend there, and after she became my wife, our children went to play and look at the animals. Even when she was quite ill, we used to go for walks every Sunday morning from the Sandwell Park Farm car park. And now her ashes are laid there beneath a tree which Sandwell planted for me.

So when I see a landscape, familiar to me for decades, being ripped apart and destroyed in just a few short years, I see not only the end of a lovely thing, because it can now never be replaced, but I see much of  my life has disappeared as well.

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Nice Job Sandwell

Does anyone remember my post in January 2012 about the path round Swan Pool?

No?

I'm not surprised.  Wasn't that interesting I suppose.

Well, there's an update.

To save you looking back, there is a path, trodden by a couple of generations of feet, which runs round Swan Pool. In a couple of places this path had become impassable in very wet conditions, but, instead of just fixing those places, Sandwell decided to dig up the whole thing and put on a new surface of grit and stuff.(I hope I am not being too technical)

Of course, the Sandwell Special Path Secretariat caused this work to be started during the (predictable) awful weather of November, 2011, rather than the less predictable rains of Summer months. The result was a much longer job than otherwise might have been the case and a huge amount of muddy mess in the process.

No matter. The job was done, and, at a time, when few people would have seen what a lash up it was.

But.........

Problem.

Someone noticed, early in 2012, on, I think, their first circumnavigation of the Pool, that there was a 10 foot or so stretch of the pristine path which was under water !!!!!

And it was reported that there were other similar soggy places.

What was to be done?

No problem.

The great machine of the Sandwell Special Path Secretariat moved into high gear and by December, 2012, the solution had not only been found, but was being implemented.

Yes, a couple of  vehicles; a trailer; a digger and some other machine (unknown) with  a number of workmen appeared and by the end of January, 2013, the job was done. 

At least I think so, as to-day, Thursday, 31st January, 2013, none of them were there.

Quite what the job was, that was done, I cannot tell you. I haven't been to look. It was all too muddy for me.

But I am told that the nice new (and presumably expensive) path of barely 1 year old has been dug up in 2 or 3 places and 'drainage' pipes laid. One assumes that this is to solve the surface water on the newly laid path. 

Quite why no one didn't just put another foot or so of shale on top of the waterlogged parts is something known only to the Sandwell intelligentsia. But, anyway, it's done - apparently - and the contractors, so carefully selected by Sandwell, have left the area exactly as a visitor to the Sandwell Valley Country Park would expect to find.

Not for nothing did Sandwell post notices with the headline  ' Looking after your countryside.'

Nice job Sandwell.

Sandwell -- I am Sorry

Mea Culpa :: Mea Culpa :: Mea Culpa

 How could I have doubted Sandwell's wisdom? How could I have doubted the combined wisdom of Sandwell and the Environment Agency?

 Foolish. That's the only word to describe me.

 When, 3 years ago, I questioned the sense of Sandwell creating another run-off from Swan Pool at Sandwell Valley, just a few hundred yards from one which had been there since time immemorial, I knew in my heart of hearts that Sandwell and the Environment Agency would one day be proved right.

 And so it was.

 Just last week.

 The run-off, which had lain arid for so long, sprang into life with a virtual torrent of water gushing through it.

Actually, now I think about it, 'virtual' is perhaps the right word, as the flow was less of a spate and more of a trickle.

 But that's not the point. Sandwell and the Environment Agency were proved absolutely right in spending the 30 or 40 thousand pounds on creating the new run-off because the old one was clearly struggling - although, on second thoughts, it didn't seem to be.

Water was going through it at a fair old lick, but it looked as though it had oodles of capacity left.

 But it might not have. And that is exactly where the combined expertise and intelligence of Sandwell and the Environment agency really pays off and leaves us rank amateurs, who know nothing, standing.

 Because, if the old one had not been able to cope with unusual rainfall, and if the new one had not been constructed, where would the excess water from Swan Pool have gone?

 Would it have deluged into the nearby car park, and from there, out into Park Lane thereby interrupting the Sandwell/Birmingham traffic.

 Nope. It wouldn't.

 Why?

 Because the distance from the pool surface to the pathway at the car park end of Swan Pool was about a foot, and the distance from the pool surface to the pathway at the opposite, run-off, end looked, at the path's lowest point, to be 9 or 10 inches.

 So, instead of flooding one of the main arterial routes from Sandwell to Birmingham (I jest, of course) the water would have simply passed over the internal pathway; down the slight bank, and into the little stream that both the old and new run-offs flow into!

 No problem.

 So, although the new run-off does work, one is still bound to ask whether there was any real need for it, and the attendant expense, or whether it really was just something else, thought up to ensure the continued employment of managers, et al, at the two sponsoring organisations.

 I know what I think.

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Another First for Sandwell

Sandwell MBC has for some years now been carrying out a dual policy at the Sandwell Valley (so called) Country Park. One is to destroy as much of it as possible (just read my earlier posts) and the other is to urbanise the remainder.

The latest piece of urbanisation (dreadful word, I know, but so is what Sandwell's doing to the Valley, so it seems somehow quite appropriate) is to convert what was once a field into a car park.

The Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat had planned for the conversion to occupy the three busiest months of the year, ie June to August, but it is isn't finished yet. It looked as though it was, but then it looked as though it wasn't - a bit like the concrete steps which aren't far away from the new concrete car park. Those steps appeared complete, after well over a year's hard toil and graft, but for weeks they remained off limits to would-be users, and then someone started drilling big holes in them and inserting handrails. 

So it is with the new concrete car park. After months of scraping off the grass surface and replacing with a shale and sand base and concrete blocks, all work shuddered to a halt; the chaps and their equipment disappeared, and the thing looked as though it had been finished. 

But, no !! Or, at least, maybe not.

After a couple more weeks, a new fence started to appear down the side of the the internal road about 5 yards away from the old one. 

Then, the old one was removed, thereby making the new car park about 5 yards wider than it was before. 'Laudable' you may say, 'They can get lots more cars in the new car park now.'

Well, no!! At least, not yet.

The problem is that the extra 5 yard strip doesn't have any of the concrete blocks in it - nor the shale and sand base installed. It hasn't even got the grass off it yet.

What it does have is a line of cones where the old fence was, to stop people trying to park on it.

So one is left wondering what, exactly, the Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat has in mind for this added strip.

Obviously it is not going to become more car park. I was only joking about that. No one, not even Sandwell, would be daft enough (would they? Let's not take a vote on it...) to make a new car park and then start a secondary operation extending it even before the first bit was opened. I mean they would have to get all of the chaps back again with all of their equipment and close the place down again for, maybe, another 3 months, while the extra bit was concreted. No that would be just plain silly.

My thinking, and I don't think it can be too far off the mark, is that the Sandwell Special Car Park Secretariat, and the Sandwell Special Strategic and Forward Planning Secretariat have been liaising on this, and plan for the extra strip to become the Sandwell Valley Country Park Cricketing Centre of Excellence - or cricket pitch, to you and me. 

Now, OK, I'll grant you that some of the boundaries would be a tad short, but, on the plus side, the length would be simply wonderful. 

So, we could be on the brink of yet another first for Sandwell, and a glorious one at that. Remember it wasn't all that long ago that, despite the fact that WBA FC is only just up the road, Sandwell put up a huge coloured sign which proclaimed 'The Home of Football - Here in Sandwell.' And that was only on the back of a part-time 5-a-side football pitch and the adjacent playing fields.

Just think what the Sandwell Special Sign Secretariat could do with this. 

'''Forget Headingley. The Oval?  Nah  ::  The Home of Cricket - Here in Sandwell'''

Hoorah !!!!

That's got to be worth another Green Flag and an OBE for some tired old Councillor who's a friend of someone.

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Signs of the Times

Well. It's been a long time since my last thoughts were committed to something like paper, and the main reason is technology, or rather my inability to cope with it. I had a great problem transferring myself from Google to Google Chrome, and after overcoming that, I got a new phone, and got into a real knot in transferring the photos to my computer, and then finding them again!!. I could get them in without much trouble, but I couldn't find them again!!!! Anyway, having now mastered the art of photo retrieval, I am able, once more, to report on things which have been happening. Sandwell has, as usual, occupied much of my thinking time. An intriguing phenomenon has appeared in the last couple of months at Sandwell Valley. The Sandwell Special Sign Secretariat has caused to be erected a number of low level, in fact, near ground level, signs. Some of these take the form of little stumps with tiny signs attached to them. Others look like picture frames with what appears to be a map in them. It's not immediately apparent why these signs have been installed but, of course, being Sandwell there doesn't have to be any particularly good reason. I came across a cyclist one Sunday morning, sitting on his bike, staring down at one of the map signs. It was too far away from him to be able to discern the detail for which he was looking and he asked me if I could tell him something about it. I had to disappoint him. I told him that as it had been so wet for so many weeks the ground was soaked, but that as soon as it dried out sufficiently for me to lie down on it, I would be able to see what the map was all about. Until then, like him, I had no idea. I agreed with him that it was a little odd to put up maps with fine print so close to the ground. But I explained that Sandwell has many experts on its staff and amongst its subcontractors so there was probably a very good reason for these signs being unreadable unless you lie on the ground first. I told him about the rash of nice oak signposts which appeared all over the place a few years ago, and that progressively, Sandwell removed most of them. I also told him about the one just a few yards away which was pointing in completely the wrong direction. He seemed like a nice chap - said this was his first visit to Sandwell Valley - but I got the distinct impression that this wasn't an experience which he was going to repeat in a hurry. Anyway, all that aside, whilst there is no obvious reason for these low level signs, I think I may have reasoned out their raison d'etre. It all hinges on the location of the stumps around Swan Pool. Most of them have been positioned within a few yards of big red lifebelt stations which themselves have signs on them, some of which are identical to the tiny ones on the stumps. The difference though is that the signs on the lifebelt stations are at normal head height and of a size which enables them to be read. And therein, I think, lies the clue to the reason for the low level stumpy signs, and, by a process of extrapolation, the low level maps. It is clear that the low level signs are not intended to be read by normal sized adults. It's also pretty obvious, because of the content, that neither are they intended to be read by children. So who are they for? Why -- it's obvious. Pygmies! Now, OK, I agree that you don't see too many pygmies walking around Sandwell Valley - largely because we don't have too many in the UK. But they have lots in central Africa, and I would be prepared to bet that the Sandwell Special Strategy and Forward Planning Secretariat has spotted this, and are putting in place the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the inhabitants of Cameroon; Botswana and Namibia et al in case they are ever granted full membership of the European Union. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but this is Sandwell we are talking about, and why else have signs so close to the ground that ordinary sized people can't read? . . .

Every Day's April Fools Day at Sandwell

I don't know. I only have to turn my back for 5 minutes and away Sandwell goes again!

 Do you remember me saying that Sandwell had put up lamp posts round one of the car parks at Sandwell Valley and round the tennis courts? And do you also remember me marvelling at this - not just because Sandwell, like everywhere else, should be saving every penny it can in these straitened times, but also because the access gates to these areas are locked at dusk thereby limiting the apparent use to which these lights can be put.

 Well, if you, like me, thought that Sandwell had gone off at half cock again, you would have been quite wrong. Of course the Sandwell Intelligentsia had not gone off at half cock. The Special Lighting Secretariat had clearly thought this apparent wasteful action through thoroughly, and gone off at full cock. 

Why?

 Because, dear people, those few lights were only one part of the master plan, more of which is being unfolded as I write. Lamp posts have since sprouted all the way down from the Salters Lane entrance, past the lamp post encircled car park and tennis courts, to the Sandwell Farm car park, and there are tell-tale yellow rings here and there which suggest that more are yet to be sited round it.

 Apart from the fact that this enlarged venture has enabled Sandwell to squander even more money needlessly, it has provided the added bonus of allowing Sandwell to hire yet more arboreal specialists to chop down yet more trees. But, you may ask, why, if the access gates to these areas are locked at dusk, have Sandwell installed lights? And here's the clever bit which ordinary folk like me would never have thought of.

 The lights have been installed because there are going to be at least some parts of the year when the access gates will not be locked at dusk. Why? Well I am told that it is so that people can play tennis, or football, or visit the farm in the dark!!! Apparently Sandwell are planning to keep the farm open until 8.00pm in the Autumn. That's just what I have been told and it could be wrong, of course. But, that the lamp posts are there, is undeniable.

 Eureka!!!! Another great step forward for Sandwell. I await the next few weeks with great expectation. Could it be that the Special Lighting Secretariat has planned that the lamp posts will continue on beyond the farm, over the motorway bridge, to Swan Pool, so that people can go and see the ducks in the dark as well?

You've got to hand it to them haven't you. What vision. Well, night vision anyway. This should guarantee Sandwell's 2014 Green Flag.

 PS. I actually started writing this on 1st April - hence the title - but I am having so much trouble understanding this site since it had to move from Google to Google Chrome that I have almost given up the will to live. And where have all the paragraph breaks gone? This wasn't written as a solid block. There's something wrong somewhere and I don't think it's me this time!!

PPS I think I've found out how to do paragraphs !! (Dec 2012)

A New Sandwell Road

Look!

Sandwell is building a new road.

Unlike the A something-or-other, which I know as the West Bromwich bypass, which has been being re-jigged, literally for years, and shows no signs whatever of being anywhere near completion, this new road is almost finished - at least I think so.

The road is round part of the perimeter of the Forge Mill Lake and its stated purpose is to provide access by the disabled from the Forge Mill car park to the RSPB reserve. It has only taken 2 or 3 weeks so far, but judging from the amount of equipment; manpower and full time security, it must have cost a small fortune.

However, such considerations as cost don't seem to weigh heavily on the Sandwell intelligentia where Green Flags are concerned, because you can bet your sweet life that this is what this is all about.

Next March (2013) when Sandwell will be fully expecting to get another Green Flag, they will be able to point to their new 'disabled access' road and trumpet this as another great step forward in access at Sandwell Valley for the disabled.

But what the Green Flag people probably won't know, and probably wouldn't care less about either, is that all of the legions of disabled people, who are, apparently, queuing up to roll round the lake on this new road, have, for the last 25 years, been able to drive to another car park, the RSPB car park, which is within a few yards of the RSPB reserve!!

Sandwell may think that the Green Flag people are stupid, but do they really think that the rest of us are as well?

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