Are our police human or just robots keeping the law?

This article makes us aware just how human the police can be:

"Trying to restrain a shop owner who is attempting to run into a burning building to attempt to salvage his stock, and indeed his livelihood. Taking off my helmet so I can hear him better, he sobs as he explains to me about his life, and how he has built up his trade and now does not know what to do. I simply do not know what to say to him.

"I do something I find myself doing a lot over the next few hours, telling him I'm sorry and then giving him a manly hug with a pat on the back. Helmet back on and we're off somewhere else."

Cameron's criticism of police inaction comes across as that of a typical underhand politician scoring cheap points with the benefit of hindsight.

"The police weren't ready on Monday night". 

No neither was anyone else. Crystal balls have not, so far, been issued as part of standard police equipment.

When you reflect that several of the Ulverston Police force will almost certainly have seen duty in Manchester or even London during the past week. 

What a baptism of fire:

"As we drove we became a target. A group of people wearing hoods and with their faces covered started throwing missiles at the car," De-Haynes told the Guardian. "We stopped because that is what we are supposed to do. But the windscreen smashed and I was covered in glass, it lodged in my eye and I was spitting it out to stop myself swallowing it. It's a shock in any circumstance but when you can hear the thud of other missiles being thrown at the car, hitting the doors and windows, no matter how experienced you are, it is frightening."

The article goes on:

"Once officers were on the street, they were surprised by the support they received. "A lot of people we came across – people in an inner city area who would normally not have anything to do with the police – were on our side. We had support from everyone in an area. It was good to hear that people did want us to protect them."

I wonder how many people agreed with Cameron.

I certainly didn't and am full of respect for the job that the police did.

Hands on news from Tottenham

http://www.riotcleanup.co.uk/Riot_Clean_Up.php

Thanks to Gordon Jones of The Gill, Ulverston

I was told that several police officers are being called upon to help in Manchester,

Help set up a Credit Union for this area.

Rita Baugh has sent me the following

"Credit unions are useful for people who need small loans (say to replace a car or washing machine), and they are also ideal for people who cannot open bank accounts - for example because their income is too small or irregular. They may also be a more ethical alternative to the big banks for those who do not wish to endorse them. More detailed information about what credit unions are and do and who runs them and who they may benefit can be found here: http://www.southlakelandcu.org.uk/slcu/"

*      *      *      *      *      *

On this web site you can download an information leaflet which tells you:

"Credit Unions are community savings and loans cooperatives. They offer members the chance to save regularly and to access affordable, low interest loans

linked to the value of their savings.

All Credit Unions are owned and controlled by their members, and are run by and for local people, not for profit. Any surplus is paid out as a dividend to savers or retained to develop Credit Union services.

All savings are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in the same way as savings in banks and building societies."

In order to establish a Credit Union a minimum of 1000 pledges of support need to be collected from across South Lakeland to prove that there is enough support .

So far 165 people from throughout South Lakeland have already completed individual pledges of support. 

Thus if you think this is a good idea you need to encourage family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues to complete pledges of support. They can do this by completing an online pledge at www.southlakelandcu.org.uk

If you need a paper copy of the pledge form please get them to call Gordon Henry on (01900) 607 532 and he will send one out and a reply paid envelope.

Personally I was helped greatly by a Credit Union in the States at a time when banks would not help because I was new to the country. Because the Credit Union knew my background they were willing to give me a loan which enabled me to find a little more cash for a deposit on a much needed house - something then - in the 60s - that was a wise thing to do!

Robinson's Brewery Site

I've been thinking a lot around this issue and have reduced the argument to what does Ulverston need most on this particular site which is central to the town:

A supermarket or housing with a high degree of affordable and small units suitable for older people.

I come down on the latter.

Several of the housing schemes that have been built recently provide poor housing even modern potential slums that are not being bought by our young people.

The housing at Taylor Court on Stanley Street instead of providing dwellings for local people is being operated as a series of Holiday Cottages called Laurel Court.

The nine units at the Gill end of Upper Brook Street are so crammed in and on to of each other that they will provide the modern day equivalent of the slums of the last century. Living rooms are placed on top of other peoples bedrooms with hardly a view out of many of the windows.

I think that most local young people would rate housing above a supermarket. To achieve an desirable result, I would have thought that the new development would need to be controlled by a housing association so that the units actually reach the local people and not people attracted to retiring here having lived elsewhere.

It could be hard to persuade the planning committee that a rejection of a supermarket will not be reversed by appeal with the force of money on the side of the bullying Supermarket Big Four.

John Harris writes of his experiences in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol which was recently in the news because of local opposition to Tesco.

When it comes to planning this is what can happen:

"The local stories that underlie this picture of endless expansion tend to follow much the same script. Once one of the Big Four has a town in its crosshairs, it can usually be assured of eventual success. If planning permission is initially refused, supermarkets will appeal, knowing that the legal costs to any local authority will be so high it will usually rather cave in – so, though councillors often take a stand, the local officers who fret about their budgets turn out to be more pliable. Just to tilt things the supermarkets' way even further, there are Section 106 agreements, named after the relevant part of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990, whereby big corporations can swing the debate by offering to fund no end of sweeteners: libraries, public spaces, housing, even schools."

It's not going to be an easy fight to win,

See the web site "Keep Ulverston Special" for the latest news. They also have a petition to sign.

We have until August 19th to send in our views to the planning officer  Kate Lawson at K.Lawson@southlakeland.gov.uk

Lessons to learn from the riots

With a situation like this, the most helpful thing, for me, is to reflect and reassess the role I can play here in Ulverston.

It is not healthy, I believe, to write off happenings elsewhere as though they have no relevance to things that happen on our doorstep.

What most people agree is that the eruption of heartbreaking lawlessness has a multitude of different causes. No one issue is at the core of the violence.

The message for me comes from my experience as a teacher in London in what was seen as a very caring school, whose head set this agenda and was the reason I chose to work at his school. The result of the head's approach was that parents with problem kids sent them to our school from many parts of the area so that we struggled with teaching many difficult children.

The message I took on board is there are a substantial number of  children who have parents that couldn't cope with their own kids. One talked to parents where the kids at home set the rules. If the parents couldn't cope then who were the people who would act as parents. The answer had to be - the rest of societies adults. They - we - needed to take part in setting the standards and encouraging youngsters to grow up responsibly.

Many caring adults have taken on teaching to fulfil this role others have become social workers and youth leaders. Most are paid to do this.

Another group of paid workers who help maintain an ordered society are the police - many of these, especially in Ulverston have chosen this career to help society function and do it well.

Now the caring professions are being stretched. It's a time when people who already have full commitments of work and their own families to accept that they have an important role in helping to parent other people's children.

The lesson to learn is that we all need to take on board our reponsiblity to help bring up all the children in our community. It's all too easy to think that because some people are paid to do a job then it's entirely their responsibility.

Regretably there are some people who refuse to engage in problems when they occur, their solution is to move the problem on elsewhere so that an uneasy calm is maintained and disruption exists away from their area.

This strategy appears to work - initially - but the underlying disruption is not dealt with.

The message for us, I believe, is to fully engage in our society and assert ourselves and even help beyond our immediate circle of responsibilities of home and family.

We need to tackle irresponsible behaviour by talking and remonstrating with these people who act disruptively.

In the long term, it does not help to push the problem away from us, to expect that "they" - the police; teachers; social workers; councillors; local government - should be dealing with it.

We need to be part of a responsible society and play an assertive role.

What then could we do today, tomorrow this week to do something positive in the town where we live.

This may need us to get involve with areas of town outside our immediate cosy enviroment and demonstrate involvement with other people in the town so that all sections of our town are kept in touch with each other and attitudes do not polarise into us and them.

When others are experiencing problems we need to first understand them by talking directly and second we need to become part of the solution.

Here's a guy I admire

Just arrived by email:

Tonight MondayAugust 8 at 9 pm Channel 4

'Hugh's Fish Fight: The Battle Continues' is on Channel 4 tonight, MondayAugust 8,  at 9pm - it would be fantastic if you could watch . . .

See

Tottenham

Stunned.

What lessons can we learn for Ulverston?

Do all we can to foster the building of communities that talk to each other?

Communities that respect the law and the police ?

Thanks to our size we have everything going for us but don't we have the potential for similar problems to the cities. Can't we learn from them?

Tackling even the sign of a problem before it grows.

Atracting interest.

Big Bums on Pavement is a provacative title for a blog.

I had no idea what it was about but went along and investigated when I found that this page from this blog three years ago, has been attracting a lot of interest recently - the second most viewed page in the last month.

Who do you think is spending their time looking ?  - perhaps there are some weirdos who have a strange obsession with bums of any kind - maybe the police are curious about misdemeanors form the past - maybe some, love looking at beautiful cars because they've got fed up of looking at beautiful but unavailable women - after all anyone can buy a beautiful car - with the right amount of dosh.

Do viewers wish for more of the same ? - I'm sure bums like the above are available for snaps most busy weekdays - even in the holidays - after all bums are often more viewable when the sun comes out.

Will they be as beautiful though?

Can anybody explain?

Why do we read the news?

We end up becoming gleeful that others are getting their comeuppance as in the case of Murdoch et al and that the financiers can't cope but in reality what we need is a completely new set of values where people come first.

This can start now with my neighbour.

Instead what it does is get us depressed or desensitises us so that we don't care about anything because all we see around us are problems.

Isn't it better to focus on a small world and take some action rather than become paralysed, anaesthetised.

I get the feeling that there is so much needing action that it leads me to feel depressed and I do nothing.

Are people so busy that they have lost the ability to stop and reflect. Then they could reorganise their lives so that it became positive again.

Thankfully , I have some friends that remain positive whatever hits them!

And some are being hit really hard.

Thank you friends - I appreciate your ability to cope.

What's wrong with our youngsters ?

If you take the number of breakages at The Railings - Gill Banks as a measure -

Very little.
For a group that is labelled "mindless, unthinking, reckless and boisterous" they come away with a lot of brownie points.

What's wrong with our councillors and one or two adults who should know better ?

If you take the removal of the picnic tables at the same location as a measure -

Quite a lot.
For a group that has been the responsibility of guiding our society, their knee jerk reaction of "remove those tables immediately - they're on our Town Lands Trust Land" has much about it that should be questioned. These are people who should have a reputation for consultative decisions made in the interests of the majority.

As far as one can determine, the order to remove the tables has come about because some young people were making a lot of noise there recently at around midnight. 

Rather than adopt the time honoured solution of going and talking to the boisterous end-of-term, don't-like-the-deputy-head-up-the-road youngsters  which the police are normally very good at, David Parratt's attention was drawn to the behaviour.

His immediate reaction, without consulting other neighbours or the majority of local people, was to demand that the tables be removed. This ignored the great pleasure given by these picnic tables during the daytime, enjoyed by large numbers of the public as well as the youngsters themselves.

There is also the suspicion that otherwise responsible adults have taken to throwing one or the tables in the beck. This arises from the fact that this happened on Friday at between 7 and 8 am, not a time when youngsters were seen to be up and about and yet one when said adult was seen inspecting the table moments before. The plot thickens!

Fortunately another neighbour with land immediately adjacent to the original site for the tables sees things very differently. He and his family is very sympathetic to the young people who have used this location to gather for several generations in the past. 

Assisted by friends, his land is now being altered so as to provide an alternative site for one picnic table in what should be very attractive surroundings.

If you have views on the issue, comment here or email the councillors involved; they represent the interests of The Town Lands Trust who own the land in question:

• Pat Jones
• Margaret Hornby
• Jan Hancock
• Janette Jenkinson

or deal directly with the Town Clerk, David Parratt at the Ulverston Town Council.

A question worth posing:

Cannot a good case be made for provision of a picnic area in the town for people to have snacks and chat in quiet pleasant surroundings?


The picnic tables have been donated by a group calling themselves the BUGs. The people that have renovated Mill Dam Park and are clearing Gill Banks of the invasive Himalayan Balsam.

"Let's not make war but sit down and talk"