Tag: logic

It’s difficult to believe how quickly the local red nest manage to contradict themselves when talking about bus services in Swindon. Step forward once again Mr Montaut to maintain his impressive record of twaddle.

There is a big issue about cutting down on the amount of subsided funds to Thamesdown Transport and other bus companies. People should also be encouraged to use bus services, but it is not helping that elderly people cannot use the bus with their passes before 9am.

Wow! In the space of just two sentences, he’s criticised the level of subsidy as being too high, and then asked for something to be done that would put the subsidies up. Don’t forget either that it’s only a month since his colleague Mr Wills was accusing the council of taking too much money out of the bus companies rather than putting too much in.

It seems that the ability to think logically departs councillors whenever they have to talk about recycling. This time, it is the turn of Mr Barnett to join the stiff competition for the recycled wooden spoon.

We have had problems with the bins overflowing as the company who collect the rubbish are in Gloucester.

Well, if that’s a problem, it doesn’t bode well for the citizens of North Wiltshire, now that the county council has won its bid for unitary status: Wiltshire County Council is based in Trowbridge, which is just as far from parts of North Wilts as Gloucester is from Swindon. And by Mr Barnett’s logic, waste collection in the Scottish Highlands must be virtually impossible.

Swindon Borough Council has now published a list of which streets will not have to use wheelie bins and will instead have fortnightly blue bag collections. There’s several things that are irritating about this. Looking at the list, it’s mainly of roads where the houses front straight onto the pavement. But streets such as The Mall, Faringdon Road and Park Lane, where the houses all have reasonably sized front gardens and the roads are level, are also reprieved, whereas the many terraces with a mere 3 ft front yard (Tennyson Street, for example) will receive wheelie bins, despite the difficulties of manœuvring them in such a confined space. This is inconsistent with both the council’s published basis of assessment of wheelie-suitability and that the slightly more generous criteria that councillors were told. Not surprisingly some people in Broadgreen are not impressed. According to the council’s director of environment and health

The survey was done by an expert refuse driver who walked the streets around the town assessing the road and properties to see which would be suitable. It has been done by someone who knows how the system works and understands the service and its needs.

He seems to be forgetting something. Services are there to serve the people and it is the people’s needs that are being forgotten. Also Councillor Wren is back spouting, appropriately for his council responsibilities, utter rubbish.

We mustn’t lose sight of the two key reasons why we’re making these changes. Firstly, we have to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, otherwise each and every one of us will be hit in the pocket. And secondly, it’s damaging to the environment to bury re-usable materials.

All of which is totally irrelevant to the issue of blue bag versus wheelie bin.

It’s not all sweetness and light for those receiving blue bags either. The blue bags will be twice the size of ordinary black refuse sacks. That’ll make them easy to carry when full!

It’s so comforting to read of the reasons that a group of campaigners from Wootton Bassett are opposing the plan for the western end of the southern relief road around the developments on the Swindon front garden to be near Wootton Bassett and their homes.

Lady Inchcape and campaigners against the junction fear the changes would create more traffic on local routes and congest Old Town.

So magnanimous. Concerned for the people of Swindon rather than themselves…. Except that it is a bit like suggesting that moving the western end of the M4 from Pont Abraham to Aust would lead to greater congestion in central London. It just wouldn’t be right to allow some logic to get in the way of an old fashioned nimby campaign.

No sooner have I finished writing of an example of Michael Wills’ struggle with reality, than another instance comes to my attention. This time, it’s Mr Wills, as Electoral Policy Minister, commenting on the Electoral Commission’s report on the electronic voting trials in May.

The purpose of pilots is to learn lessons for the future and we will do so…. We are pleased that the evaluations point to a high level of system security and user confidence in e-voting systems tested and that the security and integrity of the polls was not compromised.

Err? Let me quote from the commission’s report. Page 4 of the Key Findings and Recommendations Summary Paper:

[T]here was insufficient time available to implement and plan the pilots, and the quality assurance and testing was undertaken too late and lacked sufficient depth. The level of implementation and security risk involved was significant and unacceptable. There remain issues with the security and transparency of the solutions and the capacity of the local authorities to maintain control over the elections.

and again, this time from page 5:

In Swindon, pre-polling day end-to-end testing of the wireless electronic polling station network did not take place at all, which exposed the pilot scheme to an unacceptable level of risk.

Just which parts of ‘security risk involved was significant and unacceptable’ and ‘exposed the pilot scheme to an unacceptable level of risk’ does Mr Wills not understand? Just in case there’s any doubt as to where prime responsibility for these problems lies (seeing as Mr Wills is so fond of piling blame onto Swindon Council), one more quote, from page 5 again.

Although the MoJ undertook its own quality assurance through a security audit, this took place far too late. In some cases, the audit was conducted too close to the count or ‘going live’ date, which meant that, realistically, there was not enough time to make any significant changes following the audit. Clearly, it was incumbent on the suppliers to ensure that their solutions met the requirements of the framework. As noted earlier, however, these requirements were not rigorously enforced by the MoJ and by the time the audit took place it was too late.

Clearly, this government’s approach to learning lessons is to bury its head deep in the sand.

Seventy nine days after I sent them my comments, thirty five days after the closing date for the consultation, the Forward Planning Group at Swindon Borough Council have sent me an acknowledgement slip.

Consultation on the Swindon Central Area Action Plan

Thank you for your representation on the Swindon Central Area Action Plan ‘Preferred Options’ Paper.

We will write to you in due course to advise you on how your representation is being considered.

Why would I want to know how my comments are being considered? Presumably various people will read the comments submitted, possibly summarise the comments of many for wider consideration, others will think about what has been written then draw some conclusions and make a decision or two. I know what the overall process is because it was described in the consultation documents. What I would like to know is what the outcome of the consultation is. How they get there, provided it is consistent with the process the council has already described, is very much of secondary importance.

I’d also be interested to know why, when I submitted my comments by email, the Forward Planning Group insist on responding by snail mail.

Another day, another government announcement, this time a white paper on the railways. Lets see how many times they can contradict themselves or write total rubbish in one page. Lets try page seven of the summary booklet.

The Government will encourage progress by funding research and will write environmental objectives into passenger franchises. But the Government will not subsidise train operators to undertake efficiency measures that pay for themselves via reduced fuel bills. Train operators must take responsibility themselves.

Err… if environmental objectives are written into franchises and potential operators put in higher bids as a result, we the government ends up subsidising them, no?

Over £10 billion will be invested in enhancing capacity between 2009 and 2014, with overall Government support for the railway totalling £15 billion. The total investment in rail improvements will be greater than in 2004–09…. Having paid the bills in the difficult years when costs rose and under-investment needed to be tackled, we can now ease back the burden on the taxpayer.

If the spending investment will be higher between 2009 and 2014 than between 2004 and 2009, then surely that’s increasing the burden on the taxpayer rather than easing back, yes? (It is made clear elsewhere in the white paper that the figures quoted here are government expenditure and don’t include expenditure funded commercially, i.e. from fares.)

Finally, if you’re feeling optimistic about the improvement in services to Swindon that the reported expansion of Reading station will bring, don’t be. The statement about this in the appendix to the white paper is quite guarded (paragraph A16).

The Secretary of State also wants to see works undertaken at Reading station to deliver the increased capacity required in CP4 and to meet other longer term passenger and freight movement requirements. Network Rail is to undertake further development work to confirm the full scope and timing for delivery of this scheme, which the Secretary of State expects to be delivered within a maximum CP4 expenditure of £425 million. The Secretary of State expects a regulatory protocol to be established with Network Rail that sets out governance arrangements for delivery of this programme. The Secretary of State believes that delivery of the works is achievable within the statement of funds available.

Which roughly translates as they haven’t worked out what they’re going to do yet nor when they’re going to do it, but the woman at the top has plucked a figure and a time out of the air and expects them to stick to it.

There’s been a lot of fuss about what the government’s green paper on housing doesn’t say about not building in areas prone to flooding (and it says very little of substance on this because there is no change in policy on this issue). Amongst all this fuss, the comment of the chief executive of the the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, stood out.

Ministers should be applauded for recognising that there’s simply no way we could tell the thousands of key workers and low income families, desperate for a decent home, that we can’t build any more new homes because of concerns about flood plains. After all, much of the country is a flood plain.

That’s gross exaggeration on both counts. If my taxes are going to be used subsidising other peoples’ homes, I’d rather those homes were built in areas where they are not going to be at risk, thank you.

If the chief executive of the New Swindon Company is to be believed, Swindon being the home of one of nine BBC Big Screens will have a miraculous effect on the town’s standing.

Hosting the only screen in the South will propel Swindon’s image to a national level. This new development will start to create that lively bustle that has been absent for so long.

Really? I wasn’t aware of the locations of the eight existing screens. (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Rotherham and Derby, according to the press release — it seems the New Swindon Company cannot count.) I don’t recall any of those towns having their image propelled anywhere by the presence of am oversized TV. And in what way does people gawping at a big screen create ‘bustle’? Some of the other claims are just as far-fetched.

Wharf Green will also provide Swindon with a focal point for 2012 lead up activities, and events, that are planned once London takes over the mantle of Olympic City

I thought the intention was to use the Olympics to encourage people to participate in sport. It seems the aim in Swindon will be to create a community of full-on couch potatoes.

There is, methinks, a little too much excitement about what talking CCTV cameras (more accurately, CCTV cameras with loudspeakers connected to a control centre, from which warnings and announcements can be given) might achieve in the Railway Village. For starters, it is just a demonstration of the technology tomorrow: the cameras are to be trialled in Penhill, not the Railway Village, and only if successful there will they be tried elsewhere. The council does have a mobile but silent CCTV camera (trialled in Park North) and is buying three more. That will not go far, even in the straight roads of the Railway Village. Even if talking CCTV was installed, it won’t have much effect on the anti-social behaviour many have in mind. CCTV is proven* to be effective for premeditated crime, not* for spur-of-the-moment violence. It may stop some of the drug dealing, but it’ll do little for the behaviour of drunks on the way home after a Friday night of binge drinking.

* Link is to a pdf document.