Sundialing Troubles

The Croft

Back in  March for the first time and surprise to many, I published a post bringing attention to plans involving sundials on the Croft and at the War Memorial in Aldridge. A lot has happened since then including the insistence that planning permission was indeed required and now revised plans have been submitted.

It's worth bringing things together and telling the story one more time in order that people can make any submissions, comments or objections prior to 4th December 2017, which is the date the consultation period closes. It should be noted that even if you have made a submission to the original application, you are perfectly entitled to make a further comment or submission on the amended plans.

Protected (shaded) and unprotected areas of The Croft

The revised plans can be found by going to https://go.walsall.gov.uk/planningsearch pressing search and then entering the number 17/0704. The revised plans are on page 2.

How much do you know about The Croft? Many people wrongly believe that all of the Croft as outlined in the aerial photograph at the top of the page from StreetMap is protected either as Common Land or with Village Green status.  In fact the area that is not shaded by those little dots on the photograph aside, is entirely unprotected. This means that any sort of silly plans could be submitted for any sort of silly means and for that area of unprotected Croft to be built upon! If you want to see that photograph in more detail, just click on it.

If you feel that Walsall Council made a bit of a mistake by not having all of the Croft protected when it applied for Village Green Status for The Croft then please let your local Councillors, the Council and MP know!

The application for the Sundial has been amended in order to bring the whole structure within the unprotected area and therefore avoid the extra scrutiny required for planned structures on a Village Green, in a Conservation Zone.

Two and half years ago the local Rotary Club in the guise of a sub group called Aldridge Croft Community Group (ACCG) brought a proposal before Aldridge Village Partnership (AVP) for two sundials; one for The Croft and one to be placed next to the War Memorial.  AVP is in fact a company limited by guarantee to which Walsall Council provided funds from its budget for Aldridge that can be used for many purposes. AVP is run by company directors. Some directors are also members of the Rotary Club and also ACCG. Despite AVP being a limited company there are some meetings held that are open to the public but I personally have never seen these meetings advertised. That doesn't mean that they are not advertised but it would appear they are not widely advertised.

The proposal was apparently accepted by AVP with enthusiasm, although I have seen a document that confirms that it was never voted upon, and without wider consultation. On this flimsy basis and with the agreement and signing off by an Officer of the Council, an application for a grant was made to Tesco Bags of Help

Despite the fact that one of the criteria set out by Tesco Bags of Help is that any planning permission required should have been obtained prior to applying for the grant, which it wasn't and still hasn't been, the application was accepted and shoppers in various local Tesco stores voted with their tokens. A grant of £10,000 was awarded for the sundials project.

Following that there was indeed some local consultation in the form of a stall one Saturday in the shopping centre and a display at the library. This consultation was neither independent or timely, coming after the grant from Tesco had been awarded.

The project supporters were then told that despite their protestations to the contrary, planning permission was indeed required. Plans for the sundial next to the memorial were dropped and a planning application for the sundial on the Croft was finally submitted in May 2017.

You may be wondering why this proposal has not been discussed by the planning committee before now. Well notices were not served or displayed correctly, so the consultation period had to be extended and also plans have been variously amended by the proposer as the objections to the project came in.

You are warned before reading further, that any impartiality I have, is now laid to rest, so if all you wanted was a summary and details of where to obtain information, please do not continue reading. Thank you

The revised plans bring the sundial into the area of the Croft that is unprotected. They also state that the sundial is not a memorial. If this is so, why is the word 'memorial' used all over the planning application? Why is the fact that the War Memorial is just a few yards away across the road, still referred to in the revised plans? In my opinion the references to the National Memorial Arboretum make it quite plain what the proposers think their sundial is; a memorial. They now refer to it as a public art project. Yes, it always was in one way but in my personal opinion a nasty, tacky piece of public art if the drawings that accompany the planning application are anything to go by and unlike the beautiful sculptures presented as art at say the National Memorial Arboretum. That is a personal opinion though, after all art is a very personal thing.

What isn't personal however, is expansion of the play area on The Croft. There are people in Aldridge who are working to try and get the play area expanded in order to install suitable play equipment for children in our community that have disabilities. What a wonderful idea and from what I understand there are organisations that would be happy to provide funding for such a project. Unfortunately if you have a sundial you cannot expand the children's play area as the space on the unprotected part of the Croft will not be available any longer. So, a public art project or a play area for ALL children?

The other problem as I see it, is if we allow a tacky art project to be built on the unprotected area of The Croft, is how many other projects are going to come out of the woodwork? By allowing the sundial, you set a precedent for other projects that are a good idea in their eyes, are enhancements in their eyes and not just a precedent for the unprotected area of the Croft but for the protected area too. Precedence is a dangerous thing.

I have other objections to the project but they will go into my submission to Planning.

You may not agree with me and my mad opinions but at least you know about this now and can make up your own mind and make submissions to Planning if you so desire. The sundial could have already been installed on the Croft, without planning permission or consultation, had it not been for the dogged determination of some local people who refuse to bow to the cabal that likes to run Aldridge, preferably without consultation.

Christmas Presents

Christmas is coming and our thoughts turn to, well whatever your thoughts turn to I do wish you all a very happy one, whatever you do, however you celebrate and with whomever you do it with.  May I however, ask you spare to just £1 for The Glebe Centre in Walsall?

Recently I launched this appeal 

The Glebe Centre provides many services for vulnerable people in Walsall, from the unemployed to the homeless, those who have addiction problems and those who have mental health problems. Services include breakfast, lunch, showers, clothing plus information and help in training, looking for work and so on. The centre is lifeline for many people and no doubt when the Night Shelter opens very shortly it may see increased usage during the day too.

The Walsall Night Shelter is a joint effort between YMCA Black Country Group (who run The Glebe) and Walsall Council and it will provide a bed for the night for rough sleepers in Walsall for three months this winter.The Shelter although having one full time worker will be run by volunteers and they are still needed so if you feel you may be able to help please use the contact details on the Facebook page

Back to my appeal. The aim is to provide people who use The Glebe with breakfasts, lunches, snacks and treats for a week over the Christmas period and also to contribute to a buffet lunch during The Glebe's  12 Days of Christmas period. If enough was raised it would be nice to think that we could contribute hot chocolate drinks and festive treats for those using the night shelter too.

All I'm asking for is one pound. If everyone who reads this made that one pound contribution we would easily exceed the target.

Please click on the picture above of HERE to view the appeal and make contribution and put a smile on the face of someone you don't know this Christmas who isn't perhaps having the best of times at the moment.

Thank you

Remembrance - ripples through time

Forget-me-not

As is usual at this time of the year, remembrance comes to the fore.

I don't believe that war is the answer, or conflict, or violence. Having long ago been a history student and studied the reasons that war has been entered into, I get angered that arguments between a tiny group of people, family spats, extreme political ideology and so forth, lead to the deaths of sometimes millions of ordinary men and women who often had no idea what they were really fighting and working for and what cause was theirs.

Remembrance for me has nothing to do with patriotism, for after all we should include in our remembrances, those from other countries who also paid the ultimate sacrifice for they were ordinary men and women caught up in something much larger than themselves too. One only has to walk around The German War Graves Cemetery at Cannock Chase to see that.  I also remember that it wasn't just young men and women from the UK who fought 'on our side'. They were joined by many nationalities and creeds from all around what are now Commonwealth countries and some too that do not wish to belong to the Commonwealth. Remembrance isn't just a white British thing and those who wish to hijack this season of remembrance for their own right wing political ends would do well to remember that.

But it isn't just those who were involved in the conflict that for me, should be remembered. I also remember those whose lives were drastically changed by conflict. My maternal Grandmother and her sisters grew up without a Father. My paternal Grandfather came home from WW1 but the privations of service left him with a weakened body leading to a premature death. This  led to my Father growing up without his Father around. My Father saw active service in Korea whilst ostensibly on National Service. Just 18 years old. He never speaks of what he saw and experienced but I know it still plays on his mind especially that now he is the only one of his group that remains alive.

The ripples of war reach out down the decades and centuries. What was done cannot be undone. The consequences are not just for the generation that lived it but for those that follow too. Emotional scars that cannot be healed. Poverty endured because a parent wasn't there. The Poppy Appeal as we now call it was originally set up as The Haig Fund by Field Marshall Douglas Haig to assist ex servicemen. That we still need a Poppy Appeal now  in the 21st century, along with all the other charities specifically and more recently set up such as Help for Heroes, in one of the largest economies of the world, speaks volumes about how this country supports it's ex servicemen and women. Successive governments have failed them and their families as the governments that sent so many to be slaughtered not just on the battlefields of Europe but further away too, failed in the past.

Just recently I learned that my Father's first cousin, an Aldridge man born and bred,  was one of the last men to die before the Armistice came into effect at 11 am on the 11th November 1918. The war diary for his regiment reads:

"....at 10.10 hours, received an order that hostilities would cease at 11.00 hours, this order only reached coys a few minutes before that hour. Enemy artillery remained active to the last and No. 54854 Pte J Frost of 'A' company was fatally wounded by a shell less than ten minutes before the armistice commenced" 

He was 19 years old.

This weekend I will be remembering the following, some who died in conflict, some who died afterwards and I will also be remembering those they left behind, those that missed, grieved and mourned them and whose lives were never the same again.

Corporal John Thomas Mason
Lance Corporal Charles Mason Died 10 May 1915
Private Eli William Frost
Private James Henry Ernest Frost Died 11 November 1918
Private William Plant Died 10 March 1915
Gunner Frank Plant
Gunner Charles Frederick Cook
Private Frank Keys Died 14 July 1916
Private Harry Keys
Private Francis Leslie Phillips Died 20 July 1916