[garinda]

It's raining.

It's raining quite heavily, but not torrentially.

I suppose that's why most of us are here. The damp Lancashire climate being ideal for the working of king cotton.

We live in a wet part of the country, yet our pavements make if feel as if we live somewhere that has Monsoons.

Whichever bright spark civil engineeer, or idiotic town planner, that thought it would be a good idea to replace all our town centre pavements with these half paved, half brick, monstrosities, wants shooting.

Pavements (I wonder where all the old York stone paving slabs ended up?) used to slope away from the shop fronts, and the water would drain into the gutters. Simple.

Now we have pavements, complete with useless bollards, which must be a nightmare for those with prams or wheelchairs, which drain to the middle of the pavement. Yes they slope away from the gutter, and away from the shop fronts, which creates a river which runs down the entire length of any given pavement.

It's almost Medieval, when they had open sewers/drains running down the middle of their thoroughfares. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that we don't have turds floating down our streets.

If anyone can see any benefit at all to these half paved/half brick pavements in Hyndburn, I'd be more than interested to hear your case.

Personally, as I attempt to dry my shoes, I'm in favour of whoever is responsible being put in the stocks at Oswaldtwistle Library...in the rain of course.