Brave New World - - ?
 

This has been mentioned before but this is the first I have seen of concrete proposals. We are to be included in a Regional Park, which will cover the whole of East Lancs. If successful, it will mean significant change. To understand the actions/inactions of HBC I think it is important that we all have a look at this document.

http://www.elp.org.uk/downloads/regionalparkbid.pdf

More importantly, it contains a whole forest of sticks with which to beat the council. :D

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

That is a lot to read Bob. It look's like a nice dream with some lovely Pic's, but unfortunately it read's like any legal document and I get lost in mumbo jumbo very quickly,:( If anyone gets any gems out of this please interperet it for me...:)

Thank's for letting us look A-Bob.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Well A-B, I'll be leaving it to you to wade through that one my p.c. isn't designed to work with micro-fitch & if I have to turn the contrast up much more on my monitor just to see those God awful pictures, I think I'd rather go blind.:p

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

One of the first changes you will see is that your postal address has now changed from Lancashire to East Lancashire.

The plan groups all the authorities in the area; Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley into what is now to be known as a Regional Park. This regional park is to become a rural city, referred to as East Lancashire.

The plan recognises that the area is in a pretty awful condition and sets out a ten year scheme for improvements, we are currently in year 4 of that scheme.

This is where Elevate East lancs, Project Phoenix and the Panopticon originate from.

The main thrust of the scheme is to increase tourism in the area by a whopping 15% over the life of the scheme.

We are expected to wish to become hyperactive in getting out and about to do conservation work and bags of healthy outdoor activities, such as White Water Canooing (I kid you not, it is in the details of the bid) . Additionally there will be what are referred to as Gateways to the regional park/rural city, where large publicly funded art works will announce to the eager thrill seeker that they have arrived on the doorstep of a whole new life experience(groan!). There will also be interractive maps on the web which will show just what is available and where it is. I have just had a look at the map for Accrington - Stocklys Sweets, Ossy Mills and Haworth Art Gallery- Oh be still my beating heart !

Not content with all these joys, we are to be surrounded by 2,450 acres of new woodland, hedgerows, cycle paths, and walk ways with community art projects, which means more of those god-awful primary school mosaics.

The Scheme also recognises that a disproportionate amount of the jobs available in the area are poorly paid and require low skills, and it aims to rectify this by taking on, as a major sponser, Time Computers at Altham, one of the poorest Employers in the entire borough.

Oh there is so much in this that is poorly thought out, unfeasable, inappropriate, desperately fashionable, and just plain wrong! that it will keep Tealeaf and I in business for ages.

Go on, make the effort and read it, it really is worth submitting for the Booker Prize under the heading of Humourous Fiction/Satire.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

My initial reaction is raise the questions:-

a)If we are in year 4 of a 10 year plan why haven't we noticed a marked improvement in our lot so far, to date, up to now, as it were, so to speak?

b)Have they any plans regarding how to prevent these works of community art being vandalised such as happened to those we already have/had?

AND - more importantly,
c) Can I opt out of the White Water Canoeing? My daughter did some of that at school camp and got very wet.

I shall endeavour to set aside time to read the rest of this interesting item A-b. Where would we be without you bringing these little gems to our attention?

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

In response to your questions:

A. I would have to say that your guess is a good as mine.
B. The preventative measures have already been outlined by Peter - £16000 a year - Britcliffe, when he wrote in the observer a month or so ago, that it was his intention to keep things in Hyndburn plain and simple, so there would be no public art.
C. No. There will be no opt outs. It's for your own good, just be grateful and get on with it. You never know you might enjoy it. Though quite where this activity will be carried on is a mystery to me. Ideas anybody?

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

River Stink as it goes underground in Church?.........or Tinker Brook? Hodder? Ribble? Calder?

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Absolutely! We could get that dream of mine going at the bottom of Oak St/Black Abbey where the 'town centre countryside' is under threat from a proposed health centre. Get rid of the junk, enlarge a picnic area and develop the river so that it is suitable for the white water canoeing.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

I always imagined that "White Water" implied immense torrents of water, huge waves and dangerous obstacles. Quite like the terrifying courses laid out for the sport at the Olympic Games. I dont recall any of the watercourses in the vicinity coming anywhere near an approximation of that, except on the odd occaision when they are in serious flood following a prolonged spell of heavy rainfall, which would be far too unpredictable to base a tourist attraction/health activity on.

Or am I being too picky. Perhaps "white" refers not to the volume of water but to it's contamination with industrial pollutants, in which case the local watercourses would be eminently suitable, particularly the Calder.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

A bit like this... Better get the wellies out Willow :D

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Oh yes! I can definitely see me doing that.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Can't think of anywhere round here suitable for white water activities. I wish there were as I'd be first in the queue. Had a do at white water rafting in Chamonix a couple of years ago and it's great fun...:D

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

There you are Willow, Lettie say's it's great fun, besides, you get to wear a nice plastic crash helmet! Honestly! I can't see what all the fuss is about.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

You'd also need a polio/typhoid/cholera/smallpox vacination if you were to go white water rafting on the River Stink. Plus you would need full body armour to avoid impaling youself on the Asda shopping trolleys when you fell off. No need to worry about drowning, though; you'd be killed off by the pollutants well before then.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

As I said, I can't see what all the fuss is about.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

I'm sure our illustrious council leader would be able to come up with solutions to all those problems. Just think of all those tourists who will flock to Accy to paddle their own canoes.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Well, A-B, I said I’d have a look at this document and I have done so. However, given the option was an evening with my good Finnish friend, Ms. Whiplash Helsinki 1989, it appears I made a mistake. To be blunt – this was mental torture. Now I know what it feels like to be a hostage in Iraq.

Alarm bells, should of course, have rung at the very front page. Remember your homework exercises …..title in the middle, date on the right?. “No matter,” says I, “the date will appear somewhere”. Alas, nowhere in it’s 24 pages of putrid drivel and spurious figures can it’s publication date be found. It’s no surprise, really; anyone with any pride would want to see this document well and truly vanquished.. So congratulations, A-B, in managing to excavate this one from amidst the rotten landfill of Council reports, initiatives, strategies, plans, exercises and all the rest of the garbage.

On the basis of the statistics contained within, I estimate it’s production date to be sometime around 2001; in fact, I’d say it came out on September 11th, a good day, as was said in government, to bury bad news.

Notwithstanding the fact that HBC are blatantly incapable of managing the existing parks such as Milnshaw within the borough ( amounting to no more than a couple of hectacres), they are proposing to join in with the other local authorities in a development of parkland of – wait for it –1000 hectares.

I don’t think I will bother you with the detailed content; not even with a summary; suffice to say, there are little gems that stand out. Naturally, the public transport infrastructure has to be improved although the authors nowhere mention the effect of all the additional leaves on the line. The overall plan is to make East Lancs more attractive to inward investment. Good idea – that means jobs. Unfortunatly, the industrial co-sponsor is Karrimor…..last heard of sacking half it’s workforce. That’s what happens when a company chucks money away on rubbish such as this.

The other co-sponsor is Time Computers. To quote their blurb (p9) : “We know that the regional park will help us to recruit and retain the key skills that are essential for East Lancashire to grow” Does one of those key skills involve putting computers together with lump hammers?

But the best, of course, is always last, and on this, they’ve got it right. The final section - page 20 – reads “ACCOUNTABLE BODY….Hyndburn Borough Council will act as the accountable body….the Councils Director of Financial Services will be responsible for ensuring financial propriety.”

Yes, folks, you’ve read it right. HBC will run the books. You might as well hand Air Traffic Control over to Al Q’uida…..but these jokers are serious.

So A-B, we’ll do a deal…..you don’t come up with another one of these things and I won’t ask you to go up Ossy to take the same picture twice.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Sorry to go off topic, folks. :o


Well done Mr Tealeaf, Sir. That was a very well written post. It was prosaic and erudite, acerbic and humorous in equal measures. What a pair of verbal sparring partners we have in yourself and Acrilic-Bob, Sir.
It has me in stitches reading some of the literary shenanigans between the pair of you. Long may it continue... :thumbsup:
Incidently, not an airbourne dummy or limbless teddy in sight. :rolleyes:

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

The bit I liked best was plastered all over the begining and the end;

"There are no quick fixes, long term problems require long term solutions".

I wonder who came up with that little bon-mot? You can bet it wasn't HBC, who,clearly, are firmly of the contrary opinion.

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

I wonder if the extra work for HBC produced by this useless project will mean extra payrises for Britcliffe, Rix etc????

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

is it just aesthetic improvement or are we talking helping new businesses start up too?

Re: Brave New World - - ?
 

Thank you Tealeaf for your very ascerbic view of a totally hypocritical proposal. I'm afraid it's another "Don't look at what we've got...look at what we are promising as a potential" Something that will remain a utopian dream.

Where have these people got their heads? That's right up their ars*s, right up to their shoulders!

Oh...bring back common sense .......please.......