21 December 2007
First off, Happy Christmas and my very best wishes for 2008.
Nothing earth shattering there, but, rest assured, it is meant.
The build up to Christmas has been marred by the tragedy of
two young Morpeth lads being involved in a road accident
with one ending up dead and the other very badly injured.
Young joy riders may not be the right term to use, but it
usually refers to young,(inevitably males), strutting their
wares via the car. The pair involved in the tragedy were not
necessarily part of this trend, but they demonstrate beyond any
doubt the utterly devastating effect of these high performance
cars going out of control.
Like most Morpethian's I rage against the fact that the silence
of our Town and the safety of pedestrians and fellow vehicles are
constantly being put at risk by speeding cars. However, young
people (we were young once) have, throughout the ages been putting
themselves at risk, except in this instance we (me) didn't have
access to any vehicles, let alone high performance ones.
We are all too aware of the shocking toll of fatalities on our
County's main road, the A1. The yearly fatality figures belie
the torment which visits each and every family affected.
The County Council, MP's and us as part of the population of
Northumberland should hang our heads in shame that we have not
stormed the doors of Parliament to demand a fair deal with this
death trap of a road.
Arrhhgg, I'm losing sight of the Season of goodwill already...
maybe not.
But what I cannot lose sight of is the sight of grieving parents,
brothers, sisters, emergency service personnel who would give
everything to have loved ones back to celebrate Christmas.
Enjoy your time with family and friends over Christmas and the
New Year.
November 2007
Thorny issues in the Garden of Eden
While Gods County and more specifically Gods County Town, (no, not you
Alnwick) is eminently desirable to live in, one must raise a rant about the
issues of traffic. Now this can cover many issues such as parking charges,
amount of traffic, early morning and early evening snarl ups and on and on.
Whilst most people have their own ideas on how best to manage/treat the
situation, it does spring to mind that there are people in several large
organizations who are employed and charged with specifically the issue of
monitoring and managing the traffic in and around our bari Town. Bari may be
spelt wrong, but for those not familiar with the local language it
translates as meaning lovely/ pretty.
Anyhow, back to these dedicated bands of people & Morpeth traffic. The
current fascination of replacing our aging water system at this time is to
say at the very least, mind boggling bad timing for an already depressed
sales period. 'Oh let's go to Morpeth to do the Christmas shopping' will
have led to more than its fair share of family disharmony.
Not so long ago the redevelopment of the Town Market centre took place over
roughly the same period with, I'm afraid, the same results. Anyone learnt
any lessons?
The development beside Staithes Lane, coupled with the clearly ridiculous
timing of the water pipe replacements does make me wonder and rant. Yes,
rant that the Councils and I'm looking at them all here, are not reacting.
You put Council in your moniker and you answer to us. There should be no,
'it's not our area, go and see the County, Borough, and Town'
Not least the people allegedly 'managing' our traffic with Council somewhere
in their employer's title should hang their heads, but so should the Police.
They have a large part to play in the management of road traffic, (the fact
that we have been unable to hold what was the oldest road race in the world,
was put down to the cost of the boys in blue and traffic management
concerns).
Traffic lights at certain points in the Town coupled with separate traffic
lights from water/ development contractors; linked to the early/ late surge
in traffic would, you think, flag up to the Police that it could be an area
they could assist in. How? Take the scenario above, personal experience has
demonstrated that where you have two sets of lights, each out of sync with
the other, and with one of them a pelican crossing on a busy school route
gridlock surely follows. As they say, it ain't rocket science
Now, how about switching the traffic/ pelican crossing lights off and,
(here's the tricky bit) placing a Policeman there to direct traffic. Yes, he
can see when the other lights are red and gauge, when or when not, to allow
cars to go through. A lollypop man or lady could assist with the school
kid's element.
Traffic problems sadly get played out at various points around our Town
depending on where the pin lands.
I recommend that to recover from a bout of bad Morpeth traffic management
you put Boz Scaggs track 'High Sierra' (does give my age away mind) on your
CD/MP3 player
Till next time.
Morpeth Ranter
