The irony is that the forum was re-scheduled because the original date clashed with the local elections.  Given that the turnout in Broadfield local elections can sometimes only just scrape into double figures (as a percentage) there is a good chance that more potential attendees will be affected by a clash with the football than with an election.  I would have forgone an evening of knocking on doors – or just started earlier – but I’m not going to miss the footie, so I’ll have to miss bumping into our old friend Alan Quirk after all.

Still… there is always the community centre AGM next week to look forward to instead, so its really a case of ‘see you next Tuesday Alan!’

To be fair, I was a bit distracted.  We put Jayne’s car in for a service today which revealed a knackered front suspension (I blame it on all our roads being full of potholes and speed bumps) and I was in a state of shock at the second enormous garage bill in a month.

Either we have very bad luck with cars, or my garage should be changing their name to “I saw you coming”.

The problem was that some residents were getting a bit peeved about going down to the new K2 leisure centre with their towels and trunks, looking forward to a bit of a swim, and finding the pool closed to the public because of a swimming gala. The feeling was that the pool is closed to residents like this too often.

At the latest meeting one of the K2 staff came along to explain their policy on using the pool for competitive events, and she made some good points. The gist of it was that the council and the firm which runs K2 for them have an obligation to residents to provide a facility for leisure swimming, but they also have an obligation to provide an opportunity for those residents involved in more serious swimming to be able to compete.

I had not thought of it in those terms. There must be quite a few swimmers, and trainers who derive a great benefit from the galas, not to mention those who enjoy just watching.

Apparently there are some guidelines. Like there will not be events where the pool is closed for a whole weekend more than 7 times a year, and there will not be events where the pool is closed for half the weekend more than 15 times a year. Furthermore the pool will not be closed at all two weekends running.

Looking at it one way that is a closure for all or part of 22 weekends, which is nearly half the weekends (42% – not counting closures which might occur if Christmas falls on a weekend) or two closures nearly every month. Looking at it another way it is 29 weekend days closed out of a total of 104 weekend days in a year – or 28% of weekend days.

The problem seems to be one of communication. If someone does not know the pool is closed and they turn up to be disappointed it is no consolation that there was a 72% chance of it being open – it feels like its 100% closed.

The council and K2 management publicise these galas by having signs up in the building and information on websites and by trying to have schedules placed in the local papers but it is not working very well. Infrequent visitors will not have seen the in-house notices, the information only gets into the local papers if there is room for it and even then it will not be prominent (I can’t recall ever seeing such information myself in either local paper) and don’t get me started on the quality of the council’s website.

So there are limits on how often the pool can be closed off, but the actual dates are not known to most of us. Not only can this be a problem for anyone who wants to go swimming spontaneously but there could also be people who would go along as a spectator but don’t know there is anything on to see.

I think that the current forms of communication should be supplemented by that low-tech device: the bloody great sign. The football club have one at the entrance to the stadium which says when the next home game is and who it is against, the Hawth have one at the entrance saying what is on. I think that K2 should have the same. I suggested it to the council at the forum, and I would like to think they made a note of the suggestion.
One little problem there is that the entrance to K2 is on a straight bit of road and not a roundabout. Drivers will be going faster and be less likely to see a sign, but its got to be better than nothing. Perhaps they could come to an agreement with Thomas Bennett to have a sign on the corner by the roundabout as well?

I am a big fan of using technology like the Internet, but sometimes the low-tech solution can be a lot more effective.

There is a list of all the events for 2008, and its an impressive list (available from K2 or the Town Hall) with county championships, schools international competitions, national water polo, and the British triathlon nationals. As we have one of the very few 50m pools in the South-East it is very much in demand, and gives our own local swimmers a real advantage in their training, after which its only right that they can then compete.

It looks like its a really difficult balance between the needs of the area’s serious swimmers and leisure swimmers, but no amount of careful scheduling is going to satisfy everyone if it is not communicated properly. Although this was raised at the Broadfield Forum it affects more than just Broadfield. The whole town and surrounding areas will have frustrated swimmers travelling to K2 on the ‘wrong’ days.

Looking at this week’s paper, for example we have the following:

Page 3: “Giggles over road sign”
A story about ‘bloggers’ making jokes about Crawley’s “alcohol controlled zone” signs, which refers to comments on Facebook.

Page 8: “Copycats are’idiots’”
All about a YouTube clip of kids doing the motorbike/roundabout stunt in a homage to the Crawley kids who did the same thing on YouTube last year.

Page 9: “Ex-wife defends PCSO caught up in Facebook row”
A follow-up from a previous week’s story, which was all about how a (former) PCSO had a Facebook page with inappropriate comments/images on it.

Page 12: Letters page
A letter from Cllr Dan Kavanagh and letters from two of his Tory colleagues, defending his record. This is a long-running story which has been in either the news or the letters pages for at least a month now, but it started with a story about a website run by Mr Kavanagh selling tacky flammable clothes erotic lingerie.

Page 13: Blogs Today
Excerpts from the Observer’s own blogs

Page 13: From the Web
Bits lifted from other web sites, including this one.

Back Page: “Fans use Evans’ column for new game”
How contributors to a Crawley Town bulletin board are playing a game called ‘Evans Obby Column Bingo’, which sounds like a lot of fun – they should make it even harder by playing a game where they have to find a photo of Steve Evans where his mouth isn’t wide open. I liked the story, and I like the sound of the game – its nearly as funny as the Jeff Stelling Soccer Saturday Drinking Game. (Example: “Whenever Chris Kamara says “its unbelievable Jeff”, all drinks must be downed”)

So only 7 items derive, one way or the other, from the Internet this week. Or did I miss something? That isn’t counting stories which they find on the Internet but don’t credit as such – like the ones about the vandalised gravestones, the tiny double yellowlines or the mini-cycle lane which were all found here.

To be fair though, when they find something here they usually give me a call and ask about it. If they find something interesting or amusing online it doesn’t make it any less interesting or amusing. It shows some initiative to make sure that all potential sources of information are being explored. If anything its partly a demonstration of the way the Internet is now a part of mainstream culture – although some of this Facebook-derived stuff is a bit naff.

For example, last week a whole page was given over to how a load of our Tory councillors have Facebook pages showing them with one friend, which was pure filler in my opinion and was either pure mischief or a misunderstanding of how Facebook works.

Having said that, I can see the attractions. Last night one of the Observer reporters was at the Broadfield Forum. He was taking notes in shorthand – its always nice to see evidence that they have learned the trade properly. He spent two hours of his life sitting through a meeting which was more constructive, orderly, and useful than it has been in the past – good for us residents but not very newsworthy. He will be a magician if he manages to fill more than a couple of paragraphs about it. When the Wealden UAF had its AGM a Crawley News reporter was there, sat through the whole meeting, chatted to lots of us, made loads of notes, and in next week’s paper filled less than 6 column-inches as a result.

You only have to look at the list of reporters in the paper to see that they do not have many. If they are all out spending several hours to generate a paragraph or two they have to do something to fill up the rest of the pages – which explains the increase in Internet-sourced stories. The other way to do it is to fill entire pages with photos of the Mela, carnival, dragon boat races, or similar events.

There doesn’t seem to be much of an alternative. They could stop sending reporters to dull, worthy events like the Broadfield Forum but I think its a good thing they do attend them sometimes (and they should continue – there is always a chance of something exciting happening). Or they could pad out their reports from such meetings to extent that they are unreadable.

I assume it was the council, assisted by some serious power tools, who didn’t just cut back the bushes, brambles and nettles by the pavement but totally obliterated them. I was expecting a bit of pruning, but this is really radical. It takes some getting used to as it changes the whole look of the road, but I like it. I like the way it has revealed the trees.

There’s a weekend coming. I might have to go out and get some snaps so I can do a before-and-after slideshow or something.

We just assumed that the paper was delivered to everywhere and if a road didn’t get it that was because they couldn’t find anyone to deliver it, but it turns out to be more complicated than that.

When Jayne spoke to the distribution office she was told that they do not deliver to the Hammond Rd estate because they are not allowed to. I didn’t really understand the reasons for this. It was something about them only being allowed to deliver to a certain number of houses in the town. It does not make any sense to me.

Who puts a limit on a newspaper’s circulation? Did they come to some arrangement at a point in time and can’t deliver to any new addresses which come along after that?

The residents of Hammond Rd. and all the roads coming off it, not only do not get the Crawley News but they don’t get the bi-monthly Crawley Live magazine from the council, which means they miss out on a lot of information there.

Is there anyone with some knowledge of local paper distribution who can explain exactly why some houses are unable to get a copy of the local paper, and who decides which houses can and which houses can’t?

EDIT: I have closed comments on this.

He actually said that it is his ambition to see all the bins removed. At a cost of £250 per bin and £140 per dog bin I can’t see his bosses wanting to stand in his way as it saves them looking for other places to reduce services.

I do not know if this move away from providing litter bins has been discussed in the council or if councillors are aware of it. The one who was at the meeting did not seem to be surprised or opposed to it. As a policy of a council which is boasting of its commitment to keeping the town clean and tidy it is definitely counter-intuitive.

The funny thing is that he may be right. He is, after all, an expert in the field and I am not, so his opinion is much more likely to be right than mine is. But when eminent scientists all say that mobile phone masts are perfectly safe it does not stop anyone who once slept through a primary school science lesson feeling qualified to know better – so even if the theory is correct (and it is only a theory remember) it will still be a brave policy for a politician to promote.

Why is it that an opinion seems to carry more weight if it comes from a layman than from someone with years of education, training and experience in a topic? I have seen plenty of examples where common sense crossed with stubbornness refuses to give in to calculation and proof.

Traffic is a case in point. We have all heard experts say that if everyone kept to the speed limit on the motorway it would reduce congestion and everyone would actually get to their destination more quickly as they would travel at a constant 70 instead of bursts of 90 in between waits in static queues… and at one level we know its possibly true or even probably true, but on another level we can’t see how we can travel faster by not speeding up – because it is counter-intuitive and we are driven by our intuition more than by facts. (I think this example is possibly related to the classic prisoners’ dilemma)

Another traffic example is seeing the predicted effect on traffic levels by a new development. I have seen studies where a development of 200 houses is predicted to increase queues at the nearest junction by an average of one car during peak hours. I have listened to the explanations of the methods used, followed the calculations and seen the proof – but it still does not sound right.

A more recent example is the bunny roundabout by my workplace. If I had been asked for an instinctive estimate of how much space each rabbit had to live in I might have said it was a couple of square metres each – but doing some calculations based on conservative estimates of population showed that they probably have more space each than we do in our houses. Common sense, intuition and instinct all said the rabbits were crammed together but maths said they had loads of space.

So I am not going to suggest this bin theory is wrong, (“unproven” is as far as I will go) but I am glad I am not the one who has to stand up and say “we are going to tackle the problem of litter by removing all the bins, and if we save a fortune then that’s just a bonus.”

On the other hand… I place trust in the opinions of experts more than most people do, and possibly too much. You would not have to be unusually cynical to see the combination of removing litter bins while increasing the number of wardens issuing littering tickets and come up with a conspiracy. It could just be a co-incidence.

I am not naming names. Anyone who has ever been will know exactly who I am talking about, and I am positive that their domination of the meeting combined with their relentless moaning about anything and everything is the reason so many people over the years have been to one meeting and never returned.

Imagine if an alchemist took a pile of old copies of the Daily Mail, made papier mache homunculi out of them and then breathed life into them and that is what you would get – the Daily Mail personified. They have an opinion on everything and its usually either “I don’t like it” or “everything used to be better”.

My unfortunate colleagues, ex-colleagues, opponents , staff from the council and police are all paid one way or another to be polite and not tell the pair to shut up and give us all a rest, and those who are elected members are bound by a code of conduct specifically to not do that. Having no such restrictions its only by a painful exertion of willpower and regard for good manners I have resisted the temptation to make some comments about giving the rest of the meeting a break.

I can only believe that anyone who finds so much to complain about must surely be going out looking for things to object to, in the same way that Mary Whitehouse used to actively seek out sources of offence.

It may just be that I am long overdue a holiday and need to seriously unwind, but judging by the rolling eyeballs around the room I don’t think I am alone on my opinions.

</RANT>

The Police also expressed some concerns about the shop and said they had made several recommendations regarding its alcohol licence, and our old friend Councillor Quirk had nothing good to say about the shop – predicting gloom and apocalypse as soon as it opens[*].

I hope they are all wrong. A shop in this end of Broadfield should be a valuable local facility, and it is something we really do need. Whether it has any negative effects is partly down to the design of it, but mostly to do with the way it is managed.

I can’t comment on the design. I can remember approving the original planning application, but what has been built bears little relation to that design as a subsequent application went in and got approved.

As for the management, we will not know until it opens. I met the owner a couple of weeks ago and he seemed nice enough. The other businesses he runs in Broadfield are all above board as far as I know and the staff in the one I use most are unfailingly polite. I am taking an optimistic view until and unless events prove otherwise.

In any case, there is a safety net – the local police have been extremely efficient at tackling the sale of alcohol to minors in the last few months with fines and licence suspensions at several shops, including a couple of Tesco Express shops.

There is also some concern about traffic and parking, but I am not convinced this will be a major problem. It is, in the immortal words of the League of Gentlemen a local shop for local people. I can’t see it attracting much passing trade: if someone is already in their car they would be as likely to go that little bit further to the garage or services at Pease Pottage or the garage and shops at the Barton. The point of the shop is to serve houses in the immediate area which are all within walking distance.

There may be some people lazy enough to drive to a shop which is only a couple of hundred metres away but I hope they are in the minority, and with all the congestion and parking shortages everywhere its easy to forget that many people do not have cars and quite a few of them live in the estates by this shop. You can see the mothers walking their children the mile to their school in the morning. Having made that round-trip twice in a day they will welcome the chance to not have a similar walk to the Barton if they suddenly run out of milk in the evening.

[*] Would this be a good time to remind everyone about the Quirk-authored Tory newsletters which have taken every opportunity to list the new shop as a valuable facility, with the implication that it is all down to their efforts that a shop is opening?

I do not mind someone having an opinion one way or another, but saying one thing in newsletters and then saying the exact opposite in front of an audience with a different opinion is just shabby. I didn’t point this out at the meeting – it is supposed to be a positive, friendly, non-partisan meeting, but I still think it is typical Tory opportunism and bandwagon-jumping which typifies the Cameron approach to try and please all the people all the time.

Of course, by saying totally different things at different times Quirk is at least guaranteeing he will be right half the time which is an improvement…

The attendance seems to be falling again, on both sides of the fence. There were only 9 regular members of the public there, Toby from the council’s community services department in the chair, a couple of coppers, a girl from the Guinness Trust and one of our 5 councillors. Its just as well we didn’t have any front-line council staff this time or there would have been a danger of officialdom outnumbering the public.

There were the usual grumbles about mini-motos, public drinking at the Barton, street lights, and the K2 road crossing. All important stuff, but you just have a dread feeling that these problems will never get solved and will be around for ever.

Some interesting feedback on a couple of the issues though. Best of all was a letter from the Highways Agency about the lights at K2. It was all about the phasing/timing of the lights and was exactly the sort of thing which regularly crops up in competitions for worst use of English. I just wish I had a copy of it to quote from – must see if I can lay my hands on it. I am sure the writer was well-intentioned and thought he was being helpful but it was a typical example of an expert in his field using the language and jargon of his profession to non-communicate with a layman and hilarious for its unintentional (I hope) obscurity.

There was a bit more luck with the derelict and toppled telecoms cabinet next to the Broadfield Park entrance – BT have said they will go and sort it out even if it turns out not to be theirs and send a bill to whoever it belongs to if it is not them.

New topics introduced this time round were:

• Speeding traffic on Pease Pottage Hill, Tollgate Hill and Woodmans Hill (notice the common factor?)
• Safety on Creasys Drive, following the couple of recent accidents there and historical fatalities
• How the Greenway is now overgrown and impassable as it goes from Tollgate Hill to Broadfield Park (I raised that one – I walked that way to the count last week and was quite shocked to see the disrepair it has fallen into in the last year.)
• The quality of grass-cutting in Broafield and how much worse it is this year than in previous years.
• How all the street signs in Broadfield are so caked in dirt you can’t read them (this is one of Jayne’s hobby horses)

What was depressing for me personally was hearing about two problems I spent ages trying to solve when I was a councillor up to June 2004 and which are not only still there, but are now worse than ever. One is an area supposedly for emergency vehicle access to the Courts area. Some residents kept breaking the locks on the gate so they could park there, meaning that ambulances or fire engines can’t get in. The situation now is that the gate has gone completely and the council have even marked out a disabled parking spot in there! The sister-in-law is more than a little concerned now that her 6-year-old has discovered a fascination with matches…

The other problem was with street lighting in the Courts. Some sort of design flaw left gaps in the lighting so certain corners are unlit. The SIL lives in one of these dark corners and after many calls to both councils was told by one of them that she should buy her own lamppost for outside her (council) house. Glad to see that customer service is alive and well.

The Woodmans Hill traffic issue is a disappointment too. When the new houses were built on the old council depot site there was a planning condition that they had to introduce traffic calming measures on Woodmans Hill as part of a Section 106 agreement before the houses could be fully occupied. They all look to be fully occupied but the S106 has been ignored and not enforced. I don’t know if it is too late to get it done now, but someone is looking into it. Back when the site was still at the development brief stage I was dead chuffed to get traffic calming included as a pre-condition of development so I am more than a little pissed off to see it not followed through.

The Broadfield Forum could be good place to bring together all the interested parties and get things improved, but when only about 1 in a thousand residents actually turn up it feels like an uphill struggle. I had only just got the facilitator to appreciate that a bit more publicity, with a more attention-grabbing topic for the meeting would attract new faces and then he moved on and we are starting all over with a new bloke… he seems to be quite good though and its early days for him still, but the publicity seems to have reverted to letters to previous attendees only, which isn’t going to increase numbers much.