Good luck to all concerned with the launch tomorrow of Sunbridge Wells. Let’s hope this bold and imaginative development may give Bradford something to smile about after another week of bleak headlines.
Just don’t let the Council anywhere near or, better still, throw them in the dungeons!
New ECB Grant For Villas!
Summer may be many months away but, as we hunker down for winter, cricket clubs up and down the country never stop. At our recent winter committee meeting we huddled together for business praying the Complaints Book had been torched.
In recent years we have sadly lost too many from our regular supporters in Critics’ Corner so we were discussing a suitable memorial given that the existing plaque has no more “vacancies” for the great pavilion in the clouds.
Up came the idea of a sheltered area. When the rains invariably come, evacuating the area can take time these days with few either nimble of foot or sober enough to walk. As Treasurer I shuddered; next they will be wanting warmed and reclining Recaro seats.
I suggested a mono-rail would be cheaper to get them all back to the bar but it was pointed out that most would be too pissed to cling on and a lightning strike would be catastrophic.
And so we are pleased to say we will be approaching the English Cricket Board (ECB) for a grant under their social mobility programme next summer.
Our new transporter will be multi-faith, LGBT sensitive, child-friendly, animal and vegan aware with a stretcher for the most inebriated on the back.
Discover The Miller Experience
As those lovely chaps from Miller Homes continue to carve up green fields in one of the few remaining attractive areas of inner Bradford – where most councillors on the ridiculously called Planning Committee don’t live – spare a thought for the locals.
Not only are they enduring a massive building site, but the lies and contempt big builders have for ordinary people enabled by impotent councils, is staggering.
“We believe…building homes…in a way which is considerate to the environment…” so goes the blurb from the Miller Homes website corporate bullshit page.
A friend of mine impacted by the original plans was initially sanguine taking the view that houses needed to be built somewhere; so he was definitely not a NIMBY.
What has left him feeling cheated and massively let down is the ease with which the developers – Miller have apparently sold-off part of the site – have changed the original plan, presumably on the okay of the nodding dogs at City Hall.
Having expected only to see the top of a gable end from his garden, he is now faced with a 12ft retaining wall on which a new house is to be built on top. Worse still, a promised 5m gap between gardens has been condensed to less than 5ft.
It is scandalous that they can present plans for approval – highly contentious as they were – and then change in such an under-hand manner and all for a few more quid.
Of course we do have MPs to take up our case…don’t we? Sadly, not a murmur from our local elected representative thus far; perhaps he is too busy with his Councillor duties across town? And what of our Council who surely must have some redress here?
If ordinary people are treated with dismissive contempt by builders lining their already bulging bonus pots there is surely something wrong. That the people we elect to fight our corner are so utterly useless – or apathetic – is even worse.
Footnote – Buyer Beware
Just in case you are thinking of buying a new home don’t even think of trusting those glossy brochures full of shiny, happy people. Take a look at this unbelievable scam perpetrated by some of the biggest companies in the UK.
Only In Britain?
Occasionally you come across a story which makes you wonder if it is April Fools Day. News that vegans are revolting over the new five pound note caused a friend to comment at the weekend.
“It’s not as if they have to eat them” he said tucking into his weekly bag of pork scratchings.
Surely there are more important things to get your soya beans in twist over?
The Casey Review
Following my very personal piece last week on my hometown comes The Casey Review.
Once again Bradford attracted local and national media coverage. Except that is for our local paper, who chose to slide the story to the inner pages so it could continue to focus on the usual mix of druggies and rapists.
The Daily Mail online used this picture to reflect a view of Bradford which is the image our city is stuck with nationally.
Even BBC Look North used the same shot before wheeling on our leader Cllr Hapless.
Predictably she blamed the issues raised by Casey on austerity – born 2010 – conveniently forgetting decades of immigration and the riots of 1995 and 2001 which were acknowledged at the time as being linked to deprivation and segregation.
As I have said, our city is woefully lacking in leadership but our latest incumbent seems to have plunged new depths of denial and delusion.
The Casey Review is a brave, factual and honest attempt to set out many of the issues drowned for decades by the slush of political correctness. It actually states much of what ordinary people have been saying for a very long time and about issues politicians just don’t want you to speak about.
There are no quick fixes but anybody that denies Bradford has major issues to resolve is living in the same Cloud Cuckoo Land as Hapless.
Interestingly, the first recommendation includes “Boosting out of school mixing between young people – including through sporting activity”. It is a point I made in my previous piece as to how the youth are the key here if anything is to change.
In Bradford the game of cricket – the one mass-participation sport shared by all communities – could be argued to have only increased segregation in recent decades with a concentration – led by governing bodies – on building brand new grounds to soothe community leaders.
As I wrote two years ago, almost to the day, schemes like Bradford Park Avenue “do nothing to “connect” communities…rather they widen divisions by creating a “them and us” mindset”
Casey puts it so: “4.10. The likelihood of having an inter-ethnic friendship increases in time across the UK, with 46% of first generation migrants having only friends of the same ethnicity, reducing to 28% in the second generation. Close inter-ethnic friendship is more likely for people who are younger, more educated, have a higher income and are proficient in English.”
This can only happen if they find ways to come together.
However, in a city where 15,000 women cannot speak English (p96), in some wards we have low standards of education and a democratic process not far removed from Zimbabwe with the concentration of postal voting.
From the very top down this hardly breeds trust in our so-called leaders.
Festive Greetings
I woke last Saturday morning to Mud’s “It’ll Be Lonely This Christmas” on the radio. Refusing to start the day in such negative mode – surely Big Al and Patch would not leave me – I flicked stations only to find “All By Myself”.
It was nice of a friend to also send me this early Christmas wish.
Brainless Quote Of The Week
As if to prove that being thick as a post is no bar to achieving in modern Britain, here is Bradford West MP Naz Shah.
“…more needs to be done to educate everyone about the dangers of driving without insurance” she said. “…the high cost of insurance will be a contributing factor in the reason drivers are uninsured.”
More evidence why the city is a laughing stock.
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