SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 137 - Them Philistines They Fight Pretty Dirty

Imagine, if you will, you want to build an extension onto your house. You draw up your planning application and all goes smoothly until you actually start digging the footings. Your neighbour suddenly objects to you removing a tree that is partially on their property. After some discussion you agree on a mutually agreeable way forward. What you would never expect would be that the way forward agreed upon would be to cut the tree vertically in half.

Well, we reluctantly return to the denouement of the democratically shabby tale of the Sheringham Bus Shelter. Norfolk County Council pulled out of the Transport Hub development in a fit of pique before Christmas. Since then there has been virtual radio silence. Only the shocking revelation that the public consultation had actually shown widespread public dislike of the whole project, not the wholehearted endorsement the NCC portrayed it as. Our Town Council has, in the meantime, been attempting to find a way forward with the NCC that does take into account the protesters concerns. Suddenly a planning proposal was likely. Though there was an air of sheepishness and a disconcerting lack of confidence in what they'd come up with. When the proposal was published, I was stunned and incensed. They wanted to incorporate the old 1950's Bus Shelter by cutting off the front half of it. The protesters understandably shouted 'Betrayal'.

Which incandescently insensitive and stupid individual came up with this idea, we shall probably never know. What was, however, very recognisable, was the same old NCC trait of attempting to draw a firm line under this proposals, as being the only viable option. Yet another fait accompli delivered. Well, viability depends upon how you chose to frame the criteria. There is a genuine, relatively minor inconvenience, with the old bus stop, that in the summer season the pavement becomes clogged with waiting people and people getting off buses, so casual pedestrians who just wants to pass by cannot easily get through. Widening the pavement would however entail the removal of the old bus shelter, that was the offending part of the previous proposal.

You might think, like many before me, that the ideal solution would be to move and relocate the old bus shelter further back. But like everyone in this country who offers an opinion about the financing of local infrastructure projects, none of us have a clue how much these ideas actually cost to carry out, and are universally appalled when we are told. You can hear the gammons now, declaiming - Couldn't this be better spent on the NHS?  The cost of moving the bus shelter, according to the NCC, is estimated at an additional £100,000, which they say they do not have. But what they mean by this, is that they are not willing to look for how that money might be found. Were the bus shelter already a listed building, they could apply for funding to help with it's preservation. But it's not, so you can literally do anything you want to it, demolish it, or cut it in half apparently.

If one were of a conspiratorial mindset, one might be left suspecting that cutting it in half is actually another manifestation of spitefulness. They literally went halfway to meet the protestors demands. This now festering conservative administration currently in the last month's of running Norfolk County Council, before they are resoundingly turfed out in May. To be replaced, no doubt, by the uniquely 'bull in a china shop' incompetence of a Reform party surge. So I hold out no hope for a more responsive administration. 

What happened here, in my opinion, was a planning authority attempting to use stipulations meant to judge new build applications, being insensitively applied to an older building. So we have pavement ease of access issues, wheelchair access issues. But all of these issues are already being addressed by the spanking new bus shelter that is still going to be built a few yards along from the old bus shelter. So why couldn't the old bus shelter just be left as it is, with all its accessibility inconsistencies. Because the planning department are inflexible and insist on compliance to strictures, that cannot be realistically fully achieved other than by the removal or a bastardised compromise, of the offending building. The Town Council met and discussed whether to approve this new plan. Which they duly did, so they did not hold their nerve and swallowed their integrity, which is pretty much in tatters anyway over their flip flopping. The NCC are pretty much hated and distrusted around here now all the more. So I wish them luck the next time they submit plans for public consultation.  

Bus Shelter already boxed up just in case

Is half an old bus shelter really better than none? Has this contentiousness over a undistinguished little bus shelter, really been worth of all this effort? What does it say about the ability of local government to take local concerns seriously? Was this upset a disproportionate and overly sentimental response in the first place? Is there a way through and beyond disagreements, that does not result in vilifying one side in opposition to the supposed virtuousness of another? Was something unhealthy formed out of the misappropriation of righteousness? I have to now let that go, to let it be whatever it will now be. The time for everyone involved to move on has arrived.