Much wants more
January 24th, 2008 by michaelwilkesTesco have taken out a lease on the premises presently occupied by the Golf Shop in Robin Hood Lane and plan to open a Tesco Metro there. Amongst many other reasons why this is undesirable is that access for bulk deliveries is totally inadequate and lorries already damage adjoining properties (and councillors had to have double height kerbstones installed to protect the central reservation). At the approach to a pedestrian crossing, there is very little parking that must also serve the other businesses and there is a potential hazard to pedestrians.
Three convenience stores in the vicinity already serve the local community very well and are now threatened by this possible development. We already have the Somerfield and Waitrose stores as full supermarkets and one Tesco already on the edge of Hall Green. There are also good local stores in Baldwins Lane, on Hall Green Parade, at Robin Hood Island and elsewhere. We don’t need any more, but it appears that Tesco does, regardless of the impact on the local community and established businesses. Councillor Michael Wilkes has presented two petitions totalling 800 signatures and, with colleagues, has written a strong objection as have numerous local residents. Tesco have more than enough already. Despite the weakness and bias towards applicants in national planning law, we must do all we can to see that this application gets thrown out.
Please support your local traders!
Making companies act with integrity
January 18th, 2008 by michaelwilkes
It’s sometimes asserted that nationalisation of Northern Rock should be opposed because competition from a state owned bank would be unfair to the rest. But an effect on the rest is precisely what is needed.
The financial barrow boys who misled so many, abusing the integrity suggested by ‘Northern’ and the solidity implied by ‘Rock’, are not alone. NR is just an example of the unprincipled way in which private sector financial outfits now operate.
‘Competition’ has come to mean little more than competition for maximum profit by whatever means. These include misusing the loyalty of longstanding - usually elderly - savers by slipping them into derisory rates of interest and acting as an unconstituted cartel by holding back, in whole or in part, on reductions in bank rate and delaying responses to those who should benefit from changes up or down.
Creeping cartelisation is a feature of other so-called competitive industries too - witness power companies managing their latest price hikes. Regulators range from inadequate to useless and consumer groups complain into the ether but are powerless. Unmitigated ‘competition’, meaning little more than an economic free-for-all, is passing its sell by date.
But there is a way of making these and other industries heed the public interest and behave with integrity. If each of these sectors had a publicly owned firm acting as an exemplar, treating people in a respectful, honest and straightforward fashion rather than merely as profit fodder this would introduce competition that is worthwhile to society as a whole. It would offer security and fairness to ordinary people, presently suffering relentless abuse by commercial predators.
Whatever happens to NR, as I’ve suggested elsewhere in a Birmingham context there would be no better place to start than with the recreation of a Municipal Bank - in so far as the Government would still allow a fully fledged Municipal Bank to operate in a meaningful way.
Hip Hip Hooray? No Way
January 3rd, 2008 by michaelwilkesAs if house buyers and sellers were not struggling enough, the Government introduced the Home Information Pack. This scheme is so badly thought out that the original start date had to be revised for smaller properties and the HIP introduction for larger properties was sneakily brought in in the autumn with virtually no publicity. What is a HIP? The basic ‘pack’ consists of local searches, title deeds and an energy efficiency report, so the only thing that would not already have been provided to a would-be purchaser is the energy efficiency report. This informs the purchaser if there is adequate loft insulation, double glazed windows, cavity wall insulation, an energy efficient boiler etc. in other words, nothing that purchasers could not find out by using their eyes and asking a few simple questions. The energy efficiency rating can be changed by something as simple as swapping ordinary light bulbs for energy efficient ones, making a nonsense of the whole thing. The cost of a HIP is upwards of £350 for the seller, which is likely to be added to the asking price of the property. In addition, buyers are advised to obtain their own local searches just to be ‘on the safe side.’ HIPs are a total waste of time and money, just what we have come to expect from this Labour Government.
