Friday, 27 June 2008

A dangerous group

There's more here about the trend in official removal of neighbourhood assets, in an article by Finlo Rohrer. My attention was drawn to this observation:

Councillors now know to be wary of a dangerous group - the early retirement activists with burgeoning web skills.

27 Jun 2008 14:40:21 | Governance and participation, Neighbourhood relations, Social capital, Space and place

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If we had been consulted If your council decides to remove an identifiable component of your neighbourhood and give it to someone else, without consulting you, how do you respond? Victorian-style cast-iron street lamp columns in St Andrews, Bristol, the Beeb reports, were being replaced with more efficient, modern ones. The originals apparently were being refurbished to 'enhance the heritage' of conservation areas elsewhere in the city. David Cemlyn, 66, chained himself to one of the posts and decided hunger strike was called for, saying: Isn't it strange you have to chain yourself to a lamppost at seven in the morning to get the council to talk to you? This corporate approach seems not to be unique to Bristol - something similar happened recently in Ealing, where one resident said: They know full well if we had been consulted there would have been an outcry. In Bristol, as I understand it, the issue has been resolved and hopefully Mr Cemlyn is eating again contentedly, job done. But I'm curious. How much does it take just to ask people? Does this sort of thing suggest deliberate surreptitious attempts by authorities to change people's neighbourhoods without them noticing? Is it a question perhaps of insufficient funding in the 'consultation' budget, or dogged compartmentalised blinkeredness on the part of staff? Or are the officials perhaps genuinely puzzled that anybody's interested? In Bristol, there's a faulty light reporting system but it's not the same thing is it?
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Meanwhile, elsewhere in Bristol... With a population reported in the 2001 census at below 11,000, the area of Easton in Bristol continues to assert its right to the title of 'street party capital.' More than 70 have been held in the area since 2001, and this weekend the thirtieth street, Anstey Street, is about to hold its first. I wish them good weather. Find out from Streets Alive how to follow suit and give these folk some competition!

Kevin Harris

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