komadori’s green corner

As noted elsewhere, today seems to have been a slow news day in the centre of the universe (Swindon to you). So, what is there to report? Well… a local footballer has opened a field and concrete pitch (‘sports facility’ to you), and Highworth Lido is to have a roof put on it (thereby seizing to be a Lido), with the great claim to fame of being ‘the only three metre diving facility within a 35 mile radius’. Wow!

Whilst I’m in favour of recycling of scarce resources or where it is the most energy efficient option, Swindon Borough Council’s requirements for it’s new recycling scheme are irksome. I’ll have so many receptacles for different types of waste in my house, there’ll be little space for much else. From July, there will be two orange boxes for paper, glass, metal and textiles recycling; clear bags for plastic bottles (but we’ll have to pay for these, to encourage us only to put them out for collection when full); green bags for garden waste; and a dark grey wheelie bin for anything else that the council won’t recycle.

Then there are the special conditions. The lids of the wheelie bins must be completely shut. I can see the intention: this, along with not collecting any over-spill waste that is not in the bins, is intended to persuade people to recycle more. But I can also foresee yobs walking down a street randomly opening wheelie bin lids, just for the ‘fun’ of seeing them being left unemptied. There’s also the minor matter of what to do if your wheelie bin goes absent with out leave. The council will provide a replacement, but only if you report it’s absence to the police. With that much hassle, you might feel inclined to buy your own replacement instead. Well, you can, but the council will not empty it.

Oh well, at least I now know what a plastic bottle is.

As it’s been a sunny day, komadori has been busy repairing the roof on his nest and assembling a water butt. (These two things aren’t directly related, though both were prompted by last weekend’s very heavy rain.)

When not crawling around on his conservatory roof or fighting with flat-packed water storage vessels (’tis strange that every flat-pack product sold allegedly only requires ‘minimal assembly’), there’s been a little time to admire Ms Bumble busy at work in the garden.

Seems that the might of the developers has been temporarily thwarted given a sideways nudge. Finches and swallows have been found (well, actually more a case of actively sought) nesting in Westlecott Farm (the white building and outbuildings in my earlier photographs). As a consequence the farm cannot be demolished until late August. The joy of the campaigners does seem somewhat sulky though, and their hopes unrealistic.

I’m a realist so understand that the development will go ahead, but all the setbacks might mean that they reconsider the size of it.

Delaying the demolition of one farm is but a minor blip in the path of a 4,500 house development.

I’m no fan of the New Mechanics’ Institution Preservation Trust. Their claims now that they did not know about the council’s plans, plans announced a couple of years ago as part of the council’s 50 promises, do nothing to endear them to me. Despite all that, it’s difficult not to feel that they have been rather poorly treated by the council. For four years they have effectively run the GWR barracks in the railway village as a youth and community centre (as well as having their offices there). Now, the council is to take it over and run it as… a youth service. For a blue nest controlled council to be taking a successful service into council control (effectively reverse privatisation) is, at best, unprincipled.

A scheme that provides ‘tranquility zones’ is to be extended to all schools in Swindon. Watching the video clip that accompanies the news item, it is clear that the scheme has helped some troubled soles in the school where it has run for the last six years. I’m sure though that, when I was a lad, most lessons were, in the main, ‘tranquil’. The idea of having a room bedecked with drapes and candles to allow children to ‘visualise their gems of inestimable value’ would have been met with bemusement.

‘Swindon is second safest town in the UK’ according to the headline. Not really. According to an insurer, policyholders in Swindon are the second least likely to make an insurance claim for theft. Secure, maybe, but not ‘safe’ in the sense that most people would imply from that word.

There’s been so much rain over the last two days that even the local duck race was cancelled. Typical bank holiday weather. So in the absence of a duck race to watch, there was little else to do but go and look at some real ducks (coots, to be precise).

Nice to see that, so soon after he was elected following a campaign in which he criticised the blue nest for putting up Council Tax, Councillor Montaut has suggested that us Council-Tax payers pick-up the tab for any additional cleaning that’s required if there’s an increase in activity at Swindon Town Football Club’s ground.

Councillor Montaut: working hard to cost residents more!

Hat-tip: Broadgreen blogger & and the local blue egg.

If Honda’s spokesman is to be believed, dumping the pound and adopting the euro would make areas of land expand. A couple of days’ ago, Honda’s president was quoted as saying they would only expand their plant in Swindon if Britain joined the euro.

Our intention is to bring operations to full capacity and have no plans to expand, though we may change our minds if Britain were to join the euro.

He even went as far as to describe the original investment in the Swindon factory as a ‘mistake’. Today this was translated into something rather different by Honda’s spokesman Paul Ormond

There is a limit to growth in Swindon, so we are growing into Eastern Europe. The total area is something like 67 acres. We couldn’t physically build any more on there. What Mr Fukui was saying is going forwards we couldn’t do a great deal more in Swindon because of the limitations on the site.

Clearly, joining the euro would make a few extra acres appear on Honda’s factory site.

If the politicians explained this magical land-expanding ability of the euro to the public, maybe people wouldn’t be so sceptical about it.