Panic In Self-Pity City!

The axe fell on 10 libraries, weekly bin services for the majority of homes, and a number of services for the vulnerable in Liverpool.

Oh noes!

Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said: “This is my third budget and it is getting harder and more painful each year. “Let me say at the outset that there is worst (sic)to come. “We are now at the stage where those options have gone, and we are having to prioritise one front line service over another.”

Oh, gawd! What vital services are for the axe? Will roads start to crumble (more)? Will waste pile up in the streets (and who'd notice?)? Will dead bodies litter the streets (more than usual)?

Will the Liverpudlians have to resort to guerrilla Zumba sessions and flashmobs?

The city currently has 19 libraries, but the council thinks it can save around £938,000 (from April next year) by closing around 10. It is examining plans to keep a seven-day service at Central Library and at two community libraries (one in the North and another in the South).

Well, libraries aren't exactly vital front line support, are they?

Withdrawing funding, over three years, to providers of accommodation for “socially excluded” people who are at risk of homelessness will save another £2.6m.

Let the charities pick up the slack, instead of squandering the donations they get on huge CEO salaries.

Next!

The youth and play service will be reviewed with the possibility of transferring services to the voluntary and community sector, saving £2.1m over three years.

Something parents and voluntary organisations can sort out instead. It's their responsibility anyway. Anything else?

Cutting school uniform grants was also due to be approved, saving an annual £700,000.

Again., shouldn't be the responsibility of the council. Is that it?

The authority has also said it will close its two municipal golf courses – at Allerton and Kirkby – if a private operator cannot be found or a £300,000 annual loss cannot be stemmed by increasing charges.

Oh. OK. I guess we have a different view of what constitutes 'vital frontline services'...

Age Concern: Sisters Pensioners Are Doin' It For Themselves!

It seems the fakecharity Age Concern has decided to register it's displeasure at being forcibly removed from the public teat in Barking and Dagenham.

Brian Devlin, on behalf of the Chairman and Trustees of the Board, has written a letter to the local paper (go to page 25):

"We are saddened that an elected leader of the council (Ed: Bad move, Devlin, someone might ask who elected YOU and your mob...) can make a statement that is full of glaring ommissions and inaccuracies. Cllr Smith clearly has his facts wrong when it comes to the funding of the active age centres...We are concerned that the loss of these services will worry hundreds of older people and their families who rely on our day care, home from hospital and other services we provide. Assurances from the council that there will be new services cannot replace the trust Age Concern's staff have built up over the years with older people."

Oh, noes! Won't someone think of the children! elderly!

But wait. What's this?

Directly under Devlin's letter is another, this one from Harry Pigott, of the Manor Club:

"Age Concern blame the Council and the current recession, but they have been closing down the Active Age Centres for a number of years, so much for looking after the 'vulnerable older people'.

When they walked out on 75 pensioners at the Manor Club in Neasham Road in 2008, the members decided to keep the club open themselves. With the help of the Council, local councillors and the Community Association, we have never been so well off.

Perhaps Age Concern would have been better off looking after the sailing boats in a local park, but I suppose with their track record they would have sunk those as well."

Ouch! Oh, dear, the trust isn't really coming through in that letter, is it Devlin?

Could it be that the elderly in Barking and Dagenham have discovered that, rather than pay Age Concern for services that they may decide to whip away at any moment, it is easier and much more satisfying to get together and run things for themselves?

Good for them!

They Shall Not Pass!

It seems the sense of community isn’t as dead as predicted:

In a landmark action to stop the blight that has hit so many communities, residents of a housing estate that now occupies the former RAF Locking have barricaded themselves into the 100-acre site and mounted a 24-hour guard. Every car coming in or out of the estate near Weston-super-Mare was checked.

What ‘blight’ could possibly drive people to these measures?

And what sort of people are we talking about?

All through the night they stood at the gates, ready to repel the invasion.

The old RAF camp had never seen an army like this, not in all its years of proud service.

There was a nurse, a lorry driver, a shopkeeper and ambulanceman, several young mothers with children at their side – and a Staffordshire bull terrier called Kandie.

A real cross-section, then. And their opponents?

Take a wild guess:

But last weekend, after 15 or 20 caravans were evicted from a nearby field, some of the ‘gipsies’ drove around the Locking site and took photographs.

One of them let it be known they had targeted the privately-owned estate and intended to set up camp on some of the open, grassy landscape where children play and people walk their dogs. He reportedly warned residents not to resist, adding: ‘We’ve got guns.’

You’d think warnings of imminent armed invaders to a respectable area would bring the police out in force, would you?

Sadly, you’d be wrong:

What happened next is a depressingly familiar saga that has unfolded in countless towns and villages, where travellers have used human rights legislation to ride roughshod over any laws that apply to ordinary folk.

The police were sympathetic but said they had only limited powers to act, primarily if a breach of the peace was threatened.

The local council – which has a legal duty anyway to provide formal sites for travellers – said it could not intervene at this stage.

When will they both intervene? When it’s too late to do anything about it, of course.

When someone’s been shot, or when the travellers are camped out and entrenched into their stolen land…

And before the usual suspects begin whining about ‘rich home owners NIMBYism and prejudice’, they can just think again:

‘We’ve got nothing against real gipsies or law-abiding travellers – there are already some in the area and they’re no trouble at all.

‘But even the ones that are here now told us this lot were different. They said they were “just a bunch of ****ing pikeys”.

‘They’re certainly not Romanies. They’re just parasites, the dregs of humanity, and we don’t want them here. But it’s the same old story. The law looks after people like this far better than it looks after us. They’ve got their “human rights”. Thanks to the law as it is at the moment, we don’t seem to have any human rights.’

Is he wrong?

He isn’t, is he?

The estate was formed after the Ministry of Defence put the old RAF living quarters and some of the land up for sale. A development company converted 328 homes and sold them to private buyers.

Properties on the estate are now worth between about £150,000 and £320,000. Many have been turned into suburban havens by proud owners, in tranquil roads where hanging baskets and cherry trees abound.

Now some of those same people are doing guard duty for up to 20 hours at a stretch.
Louise Bailey, 31, a part-time supermarket worker and mother of two, told me: ‘We feel totally let down. There doesn’t seem to be any way of protecting our community apart from doing it ourselves.’

Quite. As Obsidian remarked:

”… will we eventually see something over here? Public anger isn't boiling over, is barely palpable - we're British and tend to do the whole Stiff Upper Lip thing, wing mirrors smashed again? Fix them, no point informing the police as they'll do precisely bugger all - but it is rising, like acid reflux, and starting to irritate a little. Before long it'll burn, and all that pent up rage will unwind as the Stiff Upper Lip shifts to Thoughtless Rage.”

Let’s hope we see more of this type of non-violent action instead.

But if we don’t, or if the violence from the other side escalates, who will really be at fault here?

Two miles away, a vision of what they are fighting against was emerging in the morning mist. About a dozen caravans and vehicles set up camp on some grass verges beside the M5 motorway. Other trucks and caravans joined them later.

How long would they be there, I asked one of the men. ‘Not long,’ he said with a smile. ‘Not long.’

The people of Locking have shown the way.

Can others - will others – follow where they lead?

Reality Vs Entertainment...

Mr Nuhu said he felt let down by the emergency services, which took an hour and a half to reach them.

'I was expecting things like a helicopter (to) come and drop a ladder or commando-type rescuer,' he said.

No doubt the enquiry will highlight many, many deficiencies in design, etc.

Let's hope it also highlights what residents can do for themselves in an emergency, instead of relying on frequently overburdened and underequipped emergency services...