Was 
The paths had been very slippery in places with the rain on top of compressed icy snow.
It's the time when we overcome obstacles, particularly through our own abilities that give us a buzz.
Being reliant on sophisticated complex services is the downer.
We've unfortunately come to believe that humans can solve every problem.
It ain't so.
The Christmas travelling public became angry to find that the Eurostar trains couldn't cope with the snow and cars on the Basingstoke ring roads couldn't cope with gridlock caused by undrivable conditions.
Perhaps we need to start resetting our expectations of everything working smoothly at every turn.
The Floods here in Ulverston and Cumbria made us rethink whether we could rely on public services.
But we can expect this sort of thing to happen more and more in the future.
Global warming, I believe has upset the natural sequence of the weather and there will be an increasing number of situations where we will find ourselves to be helpless.
The result of the Copenhagen summit left me very depressed. There is no chance of the human race surviving at this rate of progress.
So what can we look forward to?
Lots and lots of opportunities of working together to becoming self reliant.
Whilst we can't rely on the weather, we can develop friendships that endure.
We can also become more self sufficient and less dependent on others.
Take keeping warm for instance.
Anyone with a fireplace that can support a coal fire or better still peat could preserve it even if it's not used now. With a stash of fuel - you can bury a few tons of coal- that won't deteriorate - so that you can be warm for a while even when the national grid brakes down. It's good to feel that one doesn't have to rely on other anonymous services.
31 comments:
The roads are bad with ice,all the moajor roads are ok but start going on the estates and there a death trap along with the pavements.Now the roads are fine why don't they start going into the estates and spread some salt around to ease the problem.Outside my house its a skating rink i went up to maple ave to grab some salt out of the bin up there but someone's already beat me to it there wasn't a drop in it.Now whats happen to all this salt bins,there use to be scattered all over town but seem's to have gone now.Took the dog down the rope walk along with a shovel and thats the same it's just an ice rink now,i took the shovel to spread some salt from the bins down there but even they've been taken away now.Looks like sldc won't even let us have salt now so they can save some cash,they won't be saying that when someone suing them for broken bones
There is much in what you say Geoff but the truth is we pay so much for services that let us down that I have to go along with the majority. A good example is the state of our local roads and pavements - mostly untouched by council workers .The pavement outside my house is inches thick in ice, ditto outside Priory Rd Coop. The A5087 coast road has not been properly cleared /gritted . I could go on .I have checked up on my elderly neighbour ,she is fine but can't get out because of ice on the pavement and she is one of many, It's a piss poor service. They don't maintain against floods and they don't maintain against ice. The silence from our elected reps is deafening.
I sympathise with both of you.
The conclusion that I've reached is not to rely on the local authority for the most part.
We on our lane up a steep sunless slope up from Stanley Street have instead been working together.
There's been a lot of involvement in keeping the road usable every day in spite of the repeated snow.
A wide variety of folk have been out sweeping and shoveling daily and even cadged our own bag of rock salt which is still half full.
We've had clear routes every day for the oldies.
"Many hands make light work" comes to mind.
Not expecting any help has meant that from the start we knew it was up to us.
It's so much easier with a small community.
The idea of retrieving responsibility for our own environment and having control of the money spent on public services is the direction my thoughts take me.
The more radical element in my thinking takes me to proposing to refuse to pay some of our taxes and take care of our immediate localities along the lines of "Small is Beautiful". This would bypass the politicians and the local government system which is creaking under incompetence.
However it will be a while before most people will want to be that extreme.
If we had a salt bin in our cul de sac I would have been happy to do the same .It's a bit rich though when the council staff are all off on paid leave for 2 weeks.The same applied at the health centre where the forecourt was like a skating rink. It's about time our local authority got back to basics.When you cross the border into Barrow Borough i.e. Newton ,Lindal ,Marton etc.the country roads have all been gritted.
As you will know from this blog, the highways department have not been popular here - just press the highways label at the bottom of the original posting.
Nick Raymond , head of highways for this area, has an appalling reputation. It's difficult to tell without a bit of an investigation how good or bad the service has been recently. Tim Farron threatened an investigation last year.
To get a better one we will all have to shout louder. Start with our two new County Councillors - James Airey at james.airey@cumbriacc.gov.uk and Peter Hornby at peter.hornby@cumbriacc.gov.uk.
Send them an email with a copy to me - gd at tygh.co.uk and I'll follow it up and let you know how I get on - and you could do the same with this blog and let us all know.
Ulverston people have got to start throwing their weight about. If you do, you will occasionally get results. The more of us that do it and share our know-how of what works then the more likely we will get a result.
It really is worth a try. What have we to loose?
Too many just do nothing.
A.R.
Using "Rock Salt" on the Cumbria County web site I got this web page http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/roads-transport/highways-pavements/highway-maintenance/wintermaintenance/saltbinsforcumbria.asp
I phoned the number given : 0845 609 6609 just now which is a highways hotline and asked all the bins on Croftlands to be refilled. He gave me the reference no 365771 . No promise as to when.
There is also an email address
Let me know when this happens!
We will never have anything like acceptable services until we get ourselves out of the cumbria council area. How can being run from Carlisle equate to "local" government? Officials/councillors currently come here, look at our problems (and sometimes cause them!) then scuttle off back to the Scottish border safe in the knowledge they neither have to live with the problems or the aftermath of their decisions.
I propose a unitary authority based upon the old North Lonsdale area, to include Barrow Borough, co-terminous with the historic Lancashire boundaries. That way all councillors/officials will be LOCAL and will have to live with the consequences of their efforts which may cause them to actually think clearly before acting.
Such an area would have a viable population in excess of 100,000. They made Rutland (pop. 20 odd thou) into a unitary authority so I'm damned sure it would work here. All money raised would remain local and not disappear up the road to Penrith, Grasmere or Carlisle. Some services e.g. would have to be shared, notably Police. Rutland uses Leicestershire Police. Ambulances are NW based anyway and the Fire Brigade will soon be going the same way.
And, best of all, our chiselling councillors will not be able to claim thousands in expenses for travelling up to Jockland. I say again, how can cumbria be considered as "local" government?
I did the same and asked for a bin in our cul de sac my ref is 365594.
Don't hold your breath. The unpalatable truth is that most of the staff are on paid holiday just when they are needed most. Its a good job the CC don't run the hospitals too.
John Boy,
Why don't you join the real world instead of carping back to the past.
Why not start thinking of what may be possible, instead of lamenting what you don't have?
You come across as someone with emotional energy to spare; why not use it on a project that just might happen?
Furthermore for the most part a lot of your information is incorrect. We are governed from Kendal by a local groups of councillors on the County level. Here Ulverston has more power than we did when linked to the large Barrow group of Councillors.
The problem from what I've observed is that our County Councillors have rarely spoken up for Ulverston in a coordinated and forceful way.
There's a possibility of the two new Conservative Councillors being different and at the moment they have a great opportunity to do just that. Let's see what they have achieved over the South Ulverston Flooding situation by the time of the review in June 2010 as promised.
Let's see what they achieve over the Highway maintenance in our area particularly during this cold spell.
Both Flooding and Freezing conditions will be reoccurring factors in years to come because of the effect of climate change resulting mainly from the massive melting of the North Pole Ice Cap.
Our County Councillors have their work cut out as they battle at Kendal on our behalf.
Geoff : Why is wanting a unitary authority "carping(?) back to the past?"
Why is the creation of one not possible?
Anything in theory is possible.
The secret is perhaps to devise a strategy for achieving this.
Isn't it best to engage in the present first and achieve a long term goal in small steps; rather than repeating the unlikely.
I'm going to climb Everest. I'm going to climb Everest. . . .
Get some satisfaction by climbing Hoad. . . .
Emotional energy is precious.
Use it to achieve something.
Could we have reports as to when the rock salt bins are getting filled up please?
If they are not then we can have a go at the County Councillors and ask why not.
To get results we've got to keep chipping away bit by bit.
Sorry Geoff but if that's the best you can offer re improving the way Furness and area are served by "local" government, then its not good enough.
Blackburn with Darwen - now a unitary authority, not run by Lancs CC, Blackpool - now unitary, not run by Lancs CC. Rutland, TINY Rutland, unitary. Look at the map of south Lancs, a veritable jigsaw of unitaries, long out of the yoke of Grtr Manchester and Murkyside!
Then look at us - still under Carlisle/Kendal. I recall a few years back when various unitaries were proposed for this area - an excellent one was a combination of Barrow, Kendal area and Lancaster City - Ulverston councillors who were previously too happy to snipe at cumbria then lined up to say "better the devil we know, we'll stay with Carlisle". In other words they were scared of change, scared of upsetting the status quo as they saw it. Lets all sit back and do nowt.
So long as we remain in cumbria's administrative fiefdom, this area has no chance of advancing.
I see I'll have to bone up on my Unitary legislation, however I don't believe in magic wands, the same people end up in control don't they?
Please explain to us why Unitary works.
My contribution would be knowledge about the Morecambe Independents who are having a hard fight with the Lancaster lot.
Why would Ulverston get a look in squashed between Barrow and Lancaster?
What I see as the problem is the people that get elected. The system in my opinion attracts failures who look to politics as a way of gaining some self importance and being members of what they see as the 'in' club.
Isn't the way forward to attract people that have already demonstrated management ability preferably successful businessmen?
How do you do this?
And having attracted them how do you get the voters to take an interest other than to vote for the flavour of the month?
I can't explain why unitary works other than to reiterate my earlier comments. All councillors will be local as will the officials. They will all have to live with (literally) their decisions and the effects they have. No scuttling off 80 miles away to Scotland.
Money, or most of it remains local. No more Ulverston subsidising tourism in Grasmere or mountain paths in Patterdale! By and large Furness & Cartmel remain self sufficient.
If we adopted the Barrow Kendal Lancaster plan I don't know if Ulverston would be squeezed out by the bigger towns. I DO know that at present we are largely ignored by Carlisle except for when it comes to taking our cash off to the border.
Lastly, a north Lonsdale unitary might restore a bit of local identity and a sense of involvement with truly local administration.
Thanks for that John.
The problem I come back to is the quality of our leadership.
With the example of Norman Bishop-Rowe's handling of the Flood Summit still fresh. With all the politicians playing to the gallery and avoiding trying to deal with the problem, would any system be better.
If our SLDC councillors did their job well Ulverston would have a thriving future. What they can't do (which politicians are supposed to be good at) is form pacts with other small communities so that they outmaneuver those in power at Kendal.
Grange is an example of how to move forward and that's little to do with the system but with the people providing leadership.
Well, if Grange is moving forward then there must be capable people around despite your assessment of Ulverston councillors.
Seems a bit defeatist to me to think "well, all our current mob are pretty ineffective so lets just carry on as we are, theres no hope for us...."
Whatever system we have there will ALWAYS be conflict between towns. You earlier alluded to the fact that Morecambe looks upon Lancaster as a sort of parasite draining all their cash into the city. Similarly Ulverston tends to regard Kendal in the same way. I am one of those who aren't happy with the idea that some of our cash might go to flood victims in Cockermouth - after all, apart from being in the same, very remote administrative entity - what have they to do with us? (and before anybody starts calling me heartless I have donated, privately and out of free will!).
Unitaries keep it LOCAL. I guess Barrow was a sort of unitary when it was a County Boro. It ran its own education, fire service, Police force, housing etc. I laughed ironically back in 74 when the prevailing attitude was bigger is better and the fools responsible for present cumbria opined that "Furness is remote from Lancashire." Ye Gods, Lancaster is less than 40 miles away, Preston is 60 miles away, Carlisle is 80 miles distant! Says it all really.
Full marks John Boy! My sister lived in Rutland when it was swallowed up by Leicestershire 30 odd years ago, she was a parish councillor down there and always thought that people lost any interest they may have had in local politics once they were swallowed up by much larger Leics. They felt, she said, forgotten and impotent in such a comparatively big area.
Then Rutland went unitary as JB says "local" and that interest, once lost, returned. Rutland returned to the map and once again revelled in its fame as Englands smallest county.
Yes I am Lancastrian and proud of it! A unitary arrangement here in my home area would also open the door for us to return to the Lancs fold - if only for historic and ceremonial purposes. Bring it on. Geoff - get your energies diverted to this cause!!
John Boy ,
Still sounds like carping to me!
And what have you done?
I spent a whole year going door to door covering 4,000 electors in order to get elected as County Councillor and attempt to change the system.
I campaigned against the Unitary bid because I saw the poor quality of the County Councillors who were wanting it.
Now I'm encouraging people to form community groups and have a say through independent councillors.
Etc,Etc, Etc,
A bit more action please and less talk.
If you want to work on something, tell us what and we can support you.
.
Geoff I do find this "and what have you done..." attitude exceedingly annoying and i can quite see why some snipe at you-but how they hit you when you're perpetually on that high horse of yours, I don't know!
You continually carp about councillors and councils - what significant results have you achieved? It really is no good harping on about the "poor quality" of councillors - they are all potential k**bheads, get used to it. They ain't going to improve just coz Geoff Dellow tells them to!
For the record, several years ago I and several others founded a group dedicated to this topic. I attended several meetings with the then Local Government Minister David Curry MP, also helped produce a document advocating radical change to local government involving the introduction of unitaries. We got knowhere as the political mind set then was anti-unitary, "big is better" prevailed. Now I hear that Cameron is considering bringing local government "closer to the people." We shall see.
Please also stop bleating on about how wonderful Farron is....he has nothing whatsoever to do with our area, concentrate your fire - dare I say it - locally.
I'm glad that I'm being annoying, John Boy.
That was my intention.
I too was finding your dwelling in the past, as you continue to do, annoying.
If you were that involved with politics in the past, surely you are working on something tangible now.
So let's hear about it.
Let's have a proposal from you that we can join in here and now. Something small that we can achieve in the next year.
It's worth pointing out what a poor job our councillors do (as was illustrated by the recent Flood Summit when most of the active ones were present) because it may encourage others to believe that they could do a better job themselves. What we need are more independent thinking people to get involved. The party politics that was going on at the Summit meeting was an insult to those that had given their time hoping for something better.
I'll continue to talk about Tim Farron because his performance is a good example to others. Many of the causes he is pushing like Affordable Housing for locals are very pertinent to our own situation. Because his patch is Kendal centred what he does has an influence on what happens in Ulverston. The issues he supports are important to us in Ulverston because of this.
Going on about the distance to Carlisle is irrelevant as much of the action happening to us is centred in Kendal. Furthermore with these days of excellent communication why is distance such an issue? The important thing is whether our kind of problems being dealt with. For the most part these are to do with a rural environment and are shared across Cumbria.
What significant results have I achieved?
Read my blog taking into account that I'm not a councillor but just your 'average' voter. There are plenty of small achievable projects here that you could join in.
You can start with the very presence of this blog with the number of comments being made.
Hope about becoming an author?
Thanks for joining in.
"Dwelling in the past". How? Why?
"I propose a unitary authority based upon the old North Lonsdale area, to include Barrow Borough, co-terminous with the historic Lancashire boundaries."
Not living in the past, John Boy?
How will your proposal become part of the future?
If you feel it necessary to pose a question like that Geoff then I fear your understanding of the machinations of local government - indeed the very purpose of local government - is lacking in the extreme.
Go away, do some research into administrative areas then you may be better qualified to speak. You may even improve your knowledge about the nature of administrative cumbria and historic Lancashire - if you want to that is. Its all out there, if a mere mortal such as I can find it, I'm damned sure you can. If you WANT to.
Ha ha JB , now we have it. Geoff thinks you are "in the past" simply because you used that dreaded word Lancashire in your suggestion.
Like so many other ignorant buggers he thinks Lancashire is abolished in these parts. Mind you, he hasn't been here long enough to care about or appreciate our heritage - unless it is cumbrian.
Geoff - I suggest you look into this a bit further, maybe write to the Chief Executive of the Duchy of Lancaster who will put you right as to our location. And yes, a unitary authority, as suggested would indeed be the future.
There are so many things I want to do!
But I can't shoot down every direction if I'm going to enjoy achieving something.
Last year, before the election, as you will know from this blog, I was paying someone £400 a month to do research for me.
Yes I can indeed find things out for myself but if you know the answers why not do us all the service of helping us to get started.
There are too many people around who know what others should be doing and do little themselves to assist.
Ditto G Can
Apologies for getting on my high horse with John Boy when the remark was aimed at Bob.
It is irritating when others tell you what you should be doing when all they seem to be doing is to complain.
Often we have to start with small steps to climb a mountain. Not bemoan the fact that we can't enjoy the view from the top and try to get others to carry us up.
No hard feelings Geoff - am so used to you being "superior"!
Anyway - I came across this Facebook group which may interest you - "Y is the council so crap in Ulverston?" They need an answer, get in there.
I read this blog all the time and I've noticed if Geoff doesn't agree with you then that's it you can't discuss it.
How do you arrive at that conclusion, S.H., as I continue to publish responses as long as they come in?
I often don't agree but always try to put the ball back in the other court
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