The view from the car park

Since I am effectively under house arrest, I am reliant on the "media" to know what else is going on in the big wide world... most of that is the same as the rest of you are looking at -- but I thought it might be interesting to have a look at the Defra agenda from the perspective of the good burghers of West Sussex as reported by this week's guest publication, the Chichester Observer.  The first thing that you note about the CO is that the bit of news that there is is basically a wrapper around a mountain of car and housing ads....this must be a city of second hand car dealers and Location, Location, Location groupies.  But the news itself shows that the Defra agenda is THE big news agenda outside the metropolis...or almost. 

Headlining this week in Chi (what the locals call it -- and easier to type -- getting better but still rubbish) is the tragic "Disabled Man dies after falling out of back of minibus" -- sounds like a need for more regulation there to me (though quite what regulation escapes me for the time being.  But also making the news is a real Defra double hit (and potential treble) -- complaints about localised air pollution by the residents of Orchard Road -- caused in part by another local cause celebre - lorries driving toward the site for gravel extraction in Lavant.  This was a big feature in last week's news as RAGE (residents against - you can guess the rest) had its first protest meeting.  And Lavant is also the location in dispute over whether its pretty enough to justify redrawing the proposed southern boundary of the incipient South Downs National Park -- presumably too much gravel extraction will make that a no brainer.

So moving on through the paper, the other big political story is on Post Office closures.  A new perspective on the rural post office issue is that these seem to me to be closures on estates or little parades of shops where people are all within quite easy walking, biking (except they don't do that here.. see earlier blog) or bussing distance of central Chichester.  But there is clearly a real campaign being waged and BERR had better be ready for the charges of destroying the community.

By page five we are into an interesting harbinger of issues to come with the Subnational review with the district councils up in arms about County Hall's "confrontational approach" over disposal of surplus land -- maybe why Richard McCarthy has decided he needs to sort out the West Sussex LAA. I bet SEEDA is looking forward to being the referee in this. What is striking down here is how many infill sites are being built on == and there are 7000 homes slated for the old army barracks up the road.

By p6 we have moved onto cute kids time --- one lot for an environmentally friendly school travel plan (well done Birdham Primary) and another for giving up chips and being a healthy school (go Thorney Island!) - they also claim over half the children walk or cycle to school. But the really big news there is an invasive species issue - a plant never seen in the UK before found in Chichester Harbour -- hands up who knows what a mullein is? this is apparently a Middle Eastern mullein which may have got here courtesy of a returning soldier from Iraq (who then went straight birdwatching in full kit --not sure I would buy that).  And a good year too for rare arable in the harbour..but a mixed year for wildfowl - Brent geese, red-breasted mergansers and pintail up; teal, shelduck and goldeneye all down. Little egrets stable.  Sounds like the shipping forecast.

... in which Selsey Bill - part of the wonderfully named Manhood peninsula - always features.  The peninsula gets its own news - but the big news there is about a new bakery so its not quite clear why.   But lower down there is the ongoing big Defra story here - the cost of flood defences and a Phil Woolas mention for answering a PQ from the local MP!  estimates of 4000 houses at risk by 2108 if sea coast defences not maintained. A complaint about Cost Benefit Analysis from the founder of Save our Selsey including a comment" at the moment you are more likely to get government funding for making new salt marshes than protecting existing towns like Selsey".


Amazingly for the CO we have to wait for the first mention of rubbish or recycling -- usually a bit of a news staple (front page headline a couple of weeks back about a pensioner's bin not being collected because it wasn't pushed quite far enough out on the pavement) - but this is a textile recycling success story so its buried on p9. You may be losing the will to live now -- but the Down Memory Lane is a whole page on - Land Girls -- who says Defra doesn't set the news agenda.

Bit of a lull through the letters -- and then finally some other people get a look in Whit stories about skills, daycare and 11 year olds drinking (different stories) -- but then we strike back with a big story on .. rabies - though this turns out to be about a puppy rescued at Gatwick -- and no one needed to call the Pet Helpline.
This seems to be an unusually carbon light edition -- normally there are lots of climate change stories as well.  But when the PM next asks what is setting the political agenda beyond the M25 - you have a nifty evidence base to draw on.

And the house arrest comment was something of an exaggeration.  Indeed social life is burgeoning by going out to eat two days running.  All fine -- except for the pub where they were worried about me sitting with crutches at the emergency exit (aka some French windows).  But this has provoked an idea for the next series of Dragon's Den - what I need more than anything (now my foot lassoo is redundant and I have discovered you can buy ankle weights at Argos for virtually no money - thanks China) is a portable crutch holder.. Entrepreneurs, where are you?