The ban comes after the Essex County Council spent £10,000 converting the library on The Green into a double-purpose self-service library and village post office.Now, I can remember holidays in Yorkshire where every little village had a post office-cum-everything else. You could get anything there – not just stamps and postcards home, but comics, sweets, toys, home-grown produce, etc.
"I'm very angry about it," the postmistress said. "I've been selling eggs, jams and honey for a long time.
"They don't make me much money but they're part of the reason people come into the shop.
"There won't be many more reasons for anyone to come in here anymore."
And you may say that things change, and with huge supermarket conglomerates on the doorstep, why should that remain the same?
Well, equally well, why should it not?
According to Ms Rollason, the council told her solicitor that they did not think it was "appropriate" for the post office to continue to sell the products after it moved in to the library.Is this one of the new-type libraries? Sorry, multi-media centre?
Still, maybe if she speaks to her local representa…
Oh:
Essex County Councillor John Aldridge, who helped Ms Rollason secure the move to the library, said he sympathised but stressed if the terms of the lease said no food then there was not much that could be done.Falling out with whom?
He said: "We're really happy to have the post office there, but if it was not part of the deal, it was not part of the deal. A few eggs are not worth falling out over."
Are you afraid to do the job you’re elected to, Mr Aldridge? That of representing the wishes of your constituents?
No sympathy here. Someone should have read the lease before entering into it.
ReplyDeleteWhat Antisthenes said.
ReplyDeleteSlightly OT but I was in a small village PO the other day, way out in the remote parts of the Highlands, and the proprietor told me they are only allowed to open the Post Office part of the business for twelve hours a week.
Never mind that they're there anyway, ten hours a day, seven days a week; never mind that all the business is conducted over a computer; never mind that the nearest big Post Office is about a hundred miles away on a road where you can't average more than about fifteen; never mind that they're a small business who need all the turnover they can get; never mind what their customers want: all that matters is what Mr. Bureaucrat says, getting his orders, I imagine, from some Union trusty.
Why do we put up with this sort of nonsense?
if the terms of the lease said no food then there was not much that could be done.
ReplyDeleteShe should add some clothes pegs, ribbons and lucky heather to the honey and eggs, then explain that she is a peddler - although not actually travelling at the moment - and that it is part of her culture as she is related by tribal ties to those interviewed by Mayhew and Morton.
Then she should ignore the terms and conditions for ten years at least, pointing out to the council that it will cost a fortune in legal bills to chuck her out and in the end she'll just comply by pretending to remove the eggs and honey, then put them back a couple of weeks later.
Woman on a raft may or may not have the answer but it is certainly a highly amusing one.
ReplyDeleteif the terms of the lease said no food then there was not much that could be done.
ReplyDeleteThis would be the 'Ten Commandments' defence, then, is it?
The council could change the terms if it wanted to, but it doesn't want to, and it isn't going to, and Councillor John Aldridge has no say in the matter. What do Councillors do again?
Roue le Jour has it - councillors simply exist to collect their 'expenses'. For the rest, it's down to the (often highly politicised) 'officers' to run the show however they please.
ReplyDeleteI don't find it "appropriate" for libraries to be taken over by hordes of screaming kids, and their mothers yapping on mobile phones. Who do I complain to?
ReplyDelete"No sympathy here. Someone should have read the lease before entering into it."
ReplyDeleteBut as RlJ points out, that's not set in stone...
"...never mind what their customers want: all that matters is what Mr. Bureaucrat says, getting his orders, I imagine, from some Union trusty."
Spot on.
"Then she should ignore the terms and conditions for ten years at least..."
:D
"I don't find it "appropriate" for libraries to be taken over by hordes of screaming kids, and their mothers yapping on mobile phones. Who do I complain to?"
Sadly, no-one.
I was going to pen some screed about how if it was hurting nobody and providing a service, then the council should just fuck off, but this sudden crushing wave of lassitude washed over me, and I realised that unless the vast majority of local government is removed, with a substantial fraction of its complement put to the sword, then nothing will ever change, so why fucking bother?
ReplyDeleteLibraries... hmmm. Strange set up: you think they are there to provide a public service but they turn out to be where left-wing claptrap thrives.
ReplyDeleteWasn't there in some distant place a library that, having embraced the 'we-love-gays' correct thinking dictat put books on their shelves with titles like 'George and Martin are my mummy and daddy,' (or perhaps it was 'Sarah and Marjorie are my mummy and daddy') and found that no one had ever taken them out to read.
But they were there in case there was sudden rush of recently-converted PC thinkers needing to educate their child.