Today's nannying jobsworth...

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Via Arfur Daley on Facebook:

Fires at an historic city centre pub will have to be put out after a landlord was told it was causing pollution following a passer-by's complaint about smoke in the street.

Graham Rowson, 60, has traditionally lit three fires for customers at his real ale bar so they can keep warm over the Christmas period.

But officials at Preston City Council have now said his 115-year-old Black Horse pub is pumping out fumes - putting it in breach of smokeless zone rules.

Apparently someone (anonymously) complained and the Council leapt into action to force a chilly Christmas onto a popular pub.

It makes you want to cry - such thoughtless, uncaring intervention based on nothing more than the word of some busybody.

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More daft 'Green Belt' nonsense...

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Planners have got something of a reputation for being sticklers for the finest detail (unless of course it's a large industrial operation that's planned for that Green Belt of course) and this is a fine example of such clipboard love:

A grandmother who spent £10,000 turning a field into a landscape garden has been ordered to rip it up because it breaches greenbelt planning rules.

Planning bosses said the garden, home to fish, frogs, newts, birds, insects and a variety of plant life, 'erodes the character and quality of the area' and is 'inappropriate for the greenbelt'.

Now before we start tearing planners to shreds, let's be clear about the regulations. A garden is 'development' and therefore not permitted (without special circumstances) in the 'Green Belt'. This isn't an anti-garden thing but a protection - because the garden is 'development' this changes the status of the land and raises the possibility of it being developed for some other more permanent and intrusive use.

However, this argument (one that the planners will have waved about in this case I don't doubt) is a weak one. The land remains 'Green Belt' and the strictures on openness and the restriction on development still pertain. But, as usual, the top councillor demonstrates a worrying ignorance of the regulations and simply says:

Council planning leader, Cllr Eddie Boden, said he 'appreciates the position' the family is in but added 'planning requirements have to be obeyed'.

He said: 'No special circumstances exist to justify what has to be considered to be inappropriate development within the greenbelt.'

This statement is, quite simply, wrong. Councils have discretion, the concept of "exceptional circumstances" is not defined and councillors can override the constraints of 'Green Belt' in circumstances like this - I know this to be so because I have argued this case before planning committees and won permissions for local residents in Bingley Rural.

Mrs Bailey should submit a planning application, get her neighbours and the Town Council to turn out in force and perhaps shame this idiot councillor into allowing her to keep her garden.

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You couldn't make it up...

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A resident asks Bradford Council for advice on possible contractors for a collapsing highway wall. She's told that "standing orders" don't permit such advice.

The resident asks - via a Freedom of Information request - for the list of approved contractors (which, if you know where to look, are on the Council website) and an explanation. Result is the list and in answer to this question:

"Details of the relevent Standing Order and/or Council Policy that prevents officers from divulging this list of approved contractors to private individuals"

the local resident received this answer:

"The Council does not have a Standing Order or written policy."

The officer concerned simply made up a policy position on the spot. And it was an unhelpful one - quelle surprise!

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Why on earth has it got anything to do with the Council?

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I mean...

The decision of a Leicestershire council to potentially limit house-to-house collections to campaigns which return at least 70 per cent of income to charity has been praised by the Charity Retail Association but treated with caution by the Institute of Fundraising.

Why? When did we start licensing the innocent business of collecting clothes door-to-door? And for what value, reason or purpose is this done? I can see none at all.

It's just red tape - scrap it.

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A reminder why the private sector is better than the state

In a recent post Tracey Cheetham takes to task a business that wrote to her regarding the delivery of wine and the postal strikes. Now I could take her to task over the position she took - business should use the post office because of its social mission. Sod whether or not that business gets a decent service from said business.

But what really struck me was the nature of the response Tracey received from the business - they'd taken the trouble to read the letter, consider the point she made, examine their business practices and respond accordingly. It looks likely that, through this action, that business has a friend and advocate (albeit not sufficiently for them to be named in Tracey's blog-post) - someone who'll buy some of that there wine!

Does Tracey think that a similar letter to a nationalised industry, a government department or one of those myriad agencies of the state that she loves so much would get such a positive caring response? Does she think that a random e-mail raising a slightly critical point to - say - the Royal Mail would get that kind of response? Somehow I very much doubt it - what Tracey would get (eventually) is a series of excuses wrapped around with a half-hearted apology. The person answering the letter doesn't give a monkeys whether Tracey is happy with the response or not -it's just another letter off the pile or e-mail from the box.

For me, Tracey's post is a timely reminder of why private business - and certainly small business - delivers so much better service than we get from the state. And the reason? Because - unlike the government - they care about having our business.