WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tardis]

The Public Toilets have new toilet roll holders, soap in the dispensers and apparently the hand dryers are working again.

Maybe just need Pendle to work on the tide mark around the tiles, and the fact that the floor seems to be always wet

[Stanley]

Bodge, when we were making cheese at West Marton we regularly had anglers calling in for a pint of whey for their bait balls. They swore it attracted fish.....
Reminder that the gas man cometh this morning.....

Vandalism in Valley Gardens this morning. There's been a lot of drinking going on there at weekends despite the ban on alcohol.....

[Thomo]

I am not a tennis fan, but I would like to wish Andy Murray the very best of luck, he will need everything he has. After many years of not quite "getting there" he now has the chance, and like the ascent of Everest in 1953, this could be a good time to do it. Good luck Andy.

[Stanley]

Federer is a hell of a mountain to climb!
Watched Serena yesterday. I like the way she didn't tuck the spare ball in her plum coloured knickers! I also like the way she keeps the emotions under control and doesn't do the histrionics bit. Well deserved but the other lady shouldn't feel too down. She put up a wonderful fight considering it was her first Grand Slam semi. We shall see a lot more of her in future....

I complained to Co-op yesterday about the fact they aren't stocking Condor pipe tobacco at Barlick. This is what passes for a response these days. No wonder the country is in trouble!

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[EileenDavid]

I thought Federer my hero played well. I also thought Murray might have been given the championship as it was Jubilee year. Remember Virginia Wade winning in a Jubilee year? Sceptical arn't I? Well pleased with result. What attracted my attention today Stanley's message and three months of mail. Eileen

[Stanley]

How dark it was at 14:00 yesterday!

Eileen, my version of that message would have been "Thank you. We are looking into the matter." The world has gone mad! (By the way, no response but their internal communications audit will flag it up as a message responded to... Another Cunning Wheeze)

[Stanley]

Later, M&S announce a 7% fall in sales, the worst performance since 2008. Shares down, pay of CEO Mark Bolland up 4%. Go figure.....

[EileenDavid]

The weather picked up here yesterday glorious sunshine got some washing dry and did a bit of weeding, but grey skies again this morning. Stanley have you not realised yet everything in the country at the moment is not customer based and bad manners seem to prevail even in emails and letters Eileen

[Tizer]

Stanley have you not realised yet everything in the country at the moment is not customer based and bad manners seem to prevail even in emails and letters Eileen

Eileen, I'll second that. Emails often don't even get an acknowledgement and you have to send them again. Stanley's lucky - at least he got a response. `Customer services' are used by companies as a buffer between the customer and the people doing the real work in the company. Remember the 1980s when management instructors like Tom Peters advocated using every possible means to make as much contact as possible with your customers? What ever happened to that, I wonder. To make matters worse, they write emails that sound like scam messages. If they sent you a proper reply it wouldn't look like a scam. Instead they send out a copy of the same message to 100s of customers every day which makes it easy for scammers to mimic them and trick folk into thinking it's a genuine message.

Stanley, re M&S's fall in profits - remember Mrs Tiz's letter of complaint to the CEO of M&S? They were supposed to return her money via the web site but, guess what, it failed and they had to do it manually. She never did get a proper response from the executives on her concerns that they didn't have proper internal reporting systems, just the usual platitudes from a minion. That problem reflects your comment on the Co-op: "By the way, no response but their internal communications audit will flag it up as a message responded to... Another Cunning Wheeze".

[Stanley]

Eileen, of course I know that but that doesn't mean we give up trying to improve the system. I haven't finished with the Co-op yet.....
Tiz, one of the most prevalent and insidious ploys used these days is the old 'cover your arse' syndrome. Systems are set up which, whenever there is criticism, can be deployed to show that 'action was taken'. A very good example is to under-man a response network and only record and analyse the messages that get through. The ones that never made it never show up in the analysis and therefore don't count. The couriers I dealt with recently are a case in point. No response to emails and customers put on permanent hold when they ring the 'help line'. 0845 number so the longer people wait, the more they get back from the call company.
Occasionally you get a refreshing surprise. A few years ago I had a beef with Balfour Beatty who were renewing the water mains in Barlick. I rang the company, the switchboard answered immediately and put me through to the general manager's secretary who listened to me and promised to pass the message on. Three days later a gang turned up and solved my problem. When I congratulated the lady on the fact that they didn't use a voice mail maze she told me that the CEO wouldn't countenance such things as they eroded customer confidence.

[EileenDavid]

I worked in customer service for many years, the policy being treat every customer as you wish to be treated yourself. Unfortunately the age of the bonus culture and time and motion took over so it's conveyor belt syndrome. One of the reasons I took early retirement. Good on you Stanley the Coop is supposed to be for the members. Eileen

[Tardis]

Farmers are building to pour away their milk #sosdairy, as they try to fight the large retail operations trying to drive prices down below costs.

Even a farmer from Lower Loxley (not from #thearchers) was interviewed on Today, and farming Today was at some Agricultural show this morning (may have been Yorkshire, which is now cancelled, but I wasn't awake enough)

[Tizer]

Some of you will know we have been involved in a long-winded planning application to get permission to knock down a 1950s bungalow and replace it with an energy-efficient modern house for ourselves. The Parish Council gave it a unanimous `thumbs up', as did all the neighbours, because it was improving the housing stock of the village. But planning has so far taken 15 weeks even though its a conventional looking house and fits perfectly into the `street scene'. Most of this delay has been caused by the ecologist (who works one day a week for the council) demanding surveys to see if there are bats in the roof. We've now had to have two surveys done and reports written (hundreds of pounds each) with the only `positive' result being some droppings in one part of the roof that are thought to be from a long-eared bat, possibly only one, and possibly transient (the droppings could be anything from a few days to months old). We were advised that we would have to provide `mitigation measures' which, because they think the droppings indicate a long-eared bat, must consist of a large attic in the roof measuring 12 x 9 feet and up to the ridge in height so that said bat can fly up and down as they like to do. Also we would have to set up a temporary bat box of a special type while the build was taking place and have a bat expert on site while the roof of the bungalow was taken down. Imagine the cost of all this (jobs for the boys, Eileen!).

But things have suddenly taken a turn for the worse. That was the advice and what we expected to get as a final decision. Now the Ecologist has demanded that instead of a temporary bat box we would have to provide a separate brick building with tiled roof etc in the garden to house the bats (even though we still aren't sure there really are any wanting to live there). This would have to be built in advance and we would receive permission to proceed with the new building only once bats had taken up residence in the special `bat house'. In other words, we could build this thing and never see a bat in it and thus never be able to build the new house. The planners follow what the Ecologist says so as "to avoid being accused of negligence". The world has gone crazy! Instead we are going to stop the project, sell the bungalow and move to a more modern house - but we've lost a lot of money on the application and all for nothing. (And now nobody can do any work on the bungalow roof like re-tiling without the bat police descending on them.)

There have also been some daft conditions from the Highways Department earlier in the planning process which I probably mentioned elsewhere.

[Tripps]

Peter - absolute nonsense isn't it. Deserves a wider - national audience. Have you thought of going to the press / radio? Richard Littlejohn would love it. How have we ended up in this state? I am bemused.

[Wendyf]

Oh dear Tizer, what a terrible disappointment for you and what a completely ridiculous situation.

[PanBiker]

Peter have you engaged the services of your MP? It would seem that this situation could warrant questions raising in The House. I don't know what breed your MP is but if he is worth his salt he should take up the gauntlet. I know from experience that our previous MP had championed a few causes for us and once raised and recorded in Hansard things started to move for the better.Even if it's only brought as a late night item in parliament, those lower down the chain tend to take notice rather than risk escalation, It' a ridiculous situation to say the least, if they keep you to these conditions the world has gone mad. Can't you simply challenge them to prove that there are bats on your property, there must be some other avenues available to you, who's to say that the ecologist just does not like you and is using position to put you at a disadvantage.

[Stanley]

Tiz, Ian is right and this decision stinks. My problem is that there is no logic in the situation. Consider what would happen if there was an accident and the house burned down and you put in an application for permission to rebuild. I don't think that there would be any problem. Obviously this is not an option but it demonstrates a case. I well remember the case of the Telford Warehouses at St Katherine's Dock near Tower Bridge. The ones nearest the bridge had been bought by a developer to build a hotel but the project was blocked because they were listed. Luckily there was a fire and the hotel was built. Such a shame..... There were many questions asked at the time of course but when the dust settled a point had been made that legislation that could result in suspicious circumstances like this had to be handled with great care.
Ian is quite right in everything he says. If you were Donald Trump you would simply throw barristers at the case and make it too expensive for the Council to impose the regulation. What you need is a route which costs nothing and the route of complaining to your MP and getting him to ask a question in the House works. Ian is right, Gordon Prentice did this for me as did Doug Hoyle long ago. This doesn't cost anything and an essential part of the request to the MP is that you send a copy to the council by registered post , this is essential as it makes sure that the communication is logged, officialdom hates registered post!
A couple of observations from my experience over the years dealing with matters like this but under the Ancient Monuments legislation. Even an Act as powerful as this contains ameliorating clauses to give a route to dealing with difficult matters. There is usually a route whereby discretion can be applied on receipt of a good case and in the case of the AM acts there was a circumstance that trumped the legislation. If it could be proved that an action contrary to the Act was forced on the applicant by another Act, like Health and Safety, there was a mechanism that allowed the conditions of the AM Act to be set aside because of the greater good. The discovery of asbestos was a frequent trigger for this clause and I have used it myself. Dee Mill was fully protected as an Ancient Monument but part of the successful case I put to the authorities was based on H&S. In legal terms this was equivalent to demolishing Stonehenge which is protected by the same Act.
These people are quite callous in making your life a misery by hiding behind 'the regulations', you are allowed to return the favour by making their lives difficult as well at no cost to yourself because they have already applied the ultimate sanction of barring your application and devaluing your house by blighting it with the law.
It might not work of course but at least you'll have the satisfaction of having fought them legally without spending money beyond the postage. The letter should be copied to the local press as well. Jobsworth officials hate publicity.
It is hateful that you should be in this position and I sympathise for both of you.

[Stanley]

PS. on another matter. I have been getting messages from my crap detector about the order for a lens I placed with a third-party retailer via Amazon. I did a bit of digging this morning, smelt a rat, checked that no money had been taken from my card and cancelled the order. As soon as I know that this has worked I shall order from another source. No rush.....

[EileenDavid]

Tizer, Definately jobs for the boys and what's more they want you to pay for it. It would seem to me that your welfare is secondary to the bats. I think I would try the national press. A solicitor told us that embarrassment in the press was a mighty tool. Eileen

[Big Kev]

The power of bat sh*t, completely unbelieveable.

On another note, the number of plastic bags, being posted through my letterbox, asking for clothing for charity. How many clothes do these people think I have? There have be 4 this week alone. If I gave to all of them I'd be naked by now. I'll get off my soapbox now...

[Tizer]

Thank you all for your concern, support and advice. It's possible that we could find a way to build, possibly by appealing, but it would still be restrictive, expensive and stressful for us. More importantly, and to use Stanley's phrase, my crap detector is buzzing and we're beginning to see lots of other issues on which we'll probably be faced with similar problems if we continue. Even if we got through planning OK we would still have to satisfy Building Control, and that looks like it's going the same way as planning. You might ask why we went ahead with the planning proposal if we didn't want to face up to these challenges - the answer is that many of them didn't exist, or were much less obstructive, until very recently. Most of the house builds we know about, even in the last few years, have received permission much more easily. Since then everything seems to have tightened up, got more complicated and involves more surveys, reports, certification etc, all costing money. The provision of all these services is turning into a great money earner - if you want a job, train for one of these!

We may try to get a resolution that will give us planning permission for a house which, although it doesn't suit our requirements, would be acceptable to other (bat friendly!) people so that we could sell the bungalow with permission rather than without. But once we've done that we will be bringing the problems we've had to the notice of our MP (Ian Liddell Grainger) and publicising it in other ways too. I've just had a letter published in a housebuilding magazine describing the trouble we'd had with planning even before it got to this present situation (the editor published it under a pseudonym so that we would be unlikely to suffer any spiteful actions by the planners). The editor is campaigning on behalf of self-builders, is appalled by our treatment and has frequent contact with the Housing Minister, so Grant Shapps will be getting the full story through that route.

[Thomo]

The tight fisted grip on our canals and rivers that has been British Waterways is set to end. Responsibility for the entire system in England and Wales is to be given to the "Canal and River Trust" a charity who's Patron is the Prince of Wales. The Government will still be contributing to this by providing £800,000,000 over the next 15 years with additional funding being provided by the trust. The plan is to make what we have more accesible and attractive with a massive planting scheme and additional wildlife habitats.

[Stanley]

The fact that it is Friday July 13th. There is a modern theory popularised by writers like Dan Brown in the 'Da Vinci Code'. "On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, an action apparently motivated financially and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown. Philip IV was the force behind this ruthless move, but it has also tarnished the historical reputation of Clement V. From the very day of Clement V's coronation, the king falsely charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses, and the scruples of the Pope were compromised by a growing sense that the burgeoning French State might not wait for the Church, but would proceed independently.[8] However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention". [from Wiki]

[cloghopper]

The fact that it is Friday July 13th. There is a modern theory popularised by writers like Dan Brown in the 'Da Vinci Code'. "On Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France, an action apparently motivated financially and undertaken by the efficient royal bureaucracy to increase the prestige of the crown. Philip IV was the force behind this ruthless move, but it has also tarnished the historical reputation of Clement V. From the very day of Clement V's coronation, the king falsely charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses, and the scruples of the Pope were compromised by a growing sense that the burgeoning French State might not wait for the Church, but would proceed independently.[8] However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention". [from Wiki]

Thanks for reminding me Stanley - won't be going out today then. Also reminds me that this year July has 5 Sundays in the month; an event that only happens about every 800 years or so. Can't remember where I picked up that useless bit of information.
cheers,
cloggy

[cloghopper]

The power of bat sh*t, completely unbelieveable.

On another note, the number of plastic bags, being posted through my letterbox, asking for clothing for charity. How many clothes do these people think I have? There have be 4 this week alone. If I gave to all of them I'd be naked by now. I'll get off my soapbox now...

Well, according to a report on Italian TV news last night, every Briton has an average of 28 pieces of clothing in their wardrobe that has never been worn.
Who actually did the counting I don't know.
cheers,
cloggy