Skip to main content

Rare serious post

As a society it is my contention that we have to a certain extent become divorced from the concept of protest (The march against the iraq war being a noble exception, for all that it accomplished very little). It's just a little outre, a little too earnest, to feel strongly enough about a subject to get off your arse and do something about it.

Unless of course, it's something to do with our fucking cars. Speed cameras, fuel prices, nothing gets the lumpen englishman quite as het up as an impingement on his freedom to do exactly what he likes with his four-wheeled deathbox. It is his "right" to have cheap fuel, his "right" to speed", his "right" to make entirely fucking unnecessary journeys. It is also his "right" to drive a dirty great bypass right through the middle of ancient farmlan just so he has the "right" not to spend another couple of minutes sat at the traffic lights outside Morrisons.

I've been thinking a lot about the nature of people's relationships with their motors recently, as a non-driver it mystifies me. I've never found a place I was unable to visit via a combination of public transport and shanks' pony. I've never felt the need to cocoon myself, shut myself off from the world in the manner of drivers. A rough poll of immediate acquaintances seemed to throw up the same reasons for driving, freedom, convenience, independence. One respondent was honest enough to admit what I suspected, he just doesn't like public transport because there are other people on it. An exceedingly english attitude which I hope to return to have a look at at a later date. Because if this country doesn't wean itself off its obsession with all things four-wheeled the consequences will be disastrous.

Such as the point of this post, in which Coastalblog come out four-square to oppose the proposed Ormskirk bypass. At a projected cost of £38 million (and when was the last time a public engineering work came in on budget?) They propose to ease congestion in central Ormskirk by driving a road though ancient farmland, near woods inhabited by protected species of bat and owl, a great swathe through the green lungs of my town.

The efficacy of this scheme is dubious to say the least. The councils own projections forecast a traffic increase. The scheme fails to acknowledge that the vast amount of Ormskirk traffic is intra-urban, as opposed to through-flow. In large part the congestion is due to unnecessary trips (the school run being a case in point, this is a small town, it's possible to walk from one extreme to the other in twenty minutes, why on earth are kids being driven?). There is also a correlation between traffic flow and a reduction in local public transport. There is no direct train to southport, rural bus services to villages like Halsall have in fact been recently axed. An action which clearly leads to further congestion. Which leads to a further excuse for a bypass.

But it's cars, innit? Everyone likes cars.

Councils questionnaire here

Downing St petition here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A whole new world.

I appear to have moved into the pub. Now, I don't wish to give the impression that this has come as a complete surprise to me, we'be been planning to do so since shortly after I bought it, but still, it's sort of snuck up on me and now I'm waking up and thinking what happened? How come I'm here? The reason for this discombobulation is that this move was initially a temporary measure. Mrs Coastalblog had some relatives coming to stay, and it made sense to put them up in our house while we decamped to the flat. It's still a work in progress, but a mad week of cleaning and carting stuff around made it habitable. I had a suspicion that once we were in we'd be back and forth for a few weeks. As with many of my hunches, I was completely and utterly wrong. As it turned out, once we were here, we were here. Things moved at pace and, now our kitchen appliances have been installed, there's no going back, the old house is unusable. It's left me with slightly mi

Genius loci

 At the back end of last week, I heard a sound which told me Autumn had truly arrived. It seemed out of place, as we sweltered in unseasonable warmth, but it is as reliable an indicator if the seasons turning as leaves browning. A slightly comical, slightly mournful honking, early in the morning then again at the turn of the day The pink-footed geese are back. It is one of those sounds which is part of the fabric of this place, the siren being tested at Ashworth Hospital means it's Monday, Bringing practice means it's Tuesday, and the migration of the Pinks to their wintering grounds at Martin Mere means it's time to dig the jumpers out. It is one thing I do think I'd miss if I moved away. The arrival of these faintly ludicrous birds, strung out loosely against the sky in their rough v formations is something which seems to have burrowed its way deep into my consciousness, a sign that yes, things are definitely not all they could be, but some things are still working. T

Mad Dogs and Immigration Ministers

It is with no small degree of distress that I'm afraid to say I've been thinking about Robert Jenrick. I know, I know, in this beautiful world with its myriad of wonders, thetre are many other things about which I could think, the play of sunlight upon dappled water, the laughter of my children, the song thrush calling from the sycamore tree a few yards away from where I type this. Yet the shiny, faintly porcine features of the Minister for Immigration keep bubbling up into my consciousness. It's a pain in the arse, I tell you. A few years ago on here I wrote a piece entitled The cruelty is the point in which I argued that some policies are cruelty simply for the sake of it, pour decourager les autres . I was reminded of that recently when I listened to Jenrick defending his unpleasant, petty decision to order murals at a migrant children's centre to be painted over. You've probably heard the story already; deeming pictures of cartoon characters "too welcoming&