Monday, 19 May 2014
The mail
Before ever computers came along the Royal Mail was a hugely successful universal cheap communication service owned by us. Now it is a mess and to blame email is pathetic as eshopping has created a massive demand for bulk service. The decline started years ago when mail ceased to arrive at the start of the working day. What causes me frustration is the apparent randomness of it. Sending something to Belfast or Dublin produces a huge disparity in cost. And when you get to parcels, now it is all down not to weight which was easy to understand but size. And unless you are sending decimalised sheets of paper, size is a very erratic concept. No doubt I will sound like an old grump but if I contrast the postal service I grew up with my father constantly using, with that which I argue with several times a week, there is no doubt whose I prefer. I heard Radio 4 this morning reporting on a survey on attitudes to politicians. It was the standard stuff of complete disillusionment but if you want one index of why I feel British government fails, this mail service is one such, along with chaotic privatised railways charging some of the most expensive fares in Western Europe (£32 at station York to Prudhoe last Friday evening for 1835-2037 entertainment for just over 100 miles depending on how it is measured) and the demolition of our domestic energy resources. The current issue which indexes this decay so effectively is that one major element in our national political construct will quite possibly vote to leave this autumn in a resounding "up yours" to Westminster. As my wife reflects, breaking a relationship because you cannot stand your partner often leaves devastation for your children.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Six tracks York Northallerton for HS2?
I don't think anyone doubts that if HS2 really serves the north east on existing tracks from York, that the Leamside will reopen. However perhaps what is bringing about Mr Mearns' MP angst is this? Reopen Leamside and try to run HS2 on existing tracks north of York. Is not York Northallerton effectively at capacity now anyway? Teesside traffic added at the latter. So the bullet point: to run HS2 trains north of York and retain a good ECML service, another two tracks York Northallerton will be needed? Perhaps like Nightstar and regional Eurostar the promise to run the trains will be made and not delivered?
Monday, 5 May 2014
Scottish referendum: the gamechanger?
I am fervently committed to the Union. So
far evidence suggests it will be a yes vote to the Union (ironically branded as
a No vote!) but perhaps rather close.
A close vote will hardly solve the
matter.
Is there a gamechanger? An announcement from the
Government which might really change the way many people think.
I think the situation needs a
gamechanger.
Here is mine: an admission that there are
challenges with the Union, challenges at least in part driven by the Greater
London/Londoncentricity/ Westminstercentricity of the present. When Glasgow was
the workshop of empire, when the North East was King Coal and the NW the
cottonopolis of the world, these things were more balanced.
So what is the gamechanger? An expression that if
Scotland votes for the Union, the Union members will work towards a new Union
capital in Liverpool? At the centre of the Union and leave Westminster as an
English parliament.
I know most folk will laugh at this, at least at
first sight, but if the British government really want to demonstrate their
committment to the future of the Union what else is on the cards as a
gamechanger?
Friday, 25 April 2014
I have a story to tell you
I have a story to tell you. I have a good Christian friend. This person works two days a week. Recently they went after some other part time work. It transpired that the new employer whilst they could only offer a bit more work nonetheless could not offer my friend the position whilst they were employed in the first part time position. "Because you will need to be available to work flexibly through the week". In other words we buy your entire soul and pay you for only part of it. We are still in Easter week and Christians have had to a face a full onslaught from some leading luminaries of Atheistic thought through the festival. They tell us that we live in a Post Christian age and generally would be better off without that superstitious self. Another random story this week told of HMRC selling private records.
Here's the deal, you do not randomly get good governance or corporate probity. Both of these seem worryingly lacking in post Christian Britain. When someone says Human Rights are god given or are naturally inallienable, who's right? I grant in the first instance Human Rights come from our own assertions. That's the record and like museums who "preserve in perpetuity" there's nothing inallienable in them, certainly not in the atheistic humanistic world. Of itself the world of nature, the one that has no creator, is red in tooth and claw. It may offer some form of gaia, not all the violence within it may be simply random. but there is in the world order, enough creature eating, enough volcanos to make naive claims that humanity can answer all its own questions, just that, naive.
Put simply the idea of the judgement of God, even the wrath of God is practically very sensible. Unless humans can find a moral structure by which to be held to account, all sorts of horrors will unfold. Professing the Christian faith does not guarantee good answers, the experience of Roman Catholicism and Nazisim in World War Two indicates that. But throw it all away, deny the history which concluded that in Christ's example there was an exemplar of the way humans should conduct business is to invite the chaos that the last 30/40 years of British life is full of.
It was very interesting that in the Easter row other religions rowed in behind Britain's Christianity. So did Jack Straw go out of his way to acknowledge David Cameron's view. The point of my opener was to say this is not arcane discussion. It has every day implications. We see the consequences in liberalising licenseing laws and the binge drinking and the NHS bill that followed.
So what sort of Christian should you be? I am not telling you, Christianity comes in a huge array of forms including David Cameron's woffly version. It is not a neat format and even those who tell you that there is a book of answers, are not quite right IMHO. It is an experience. It is about reflecting on the nature of love and grace. It is about asking non-believers what grace means to them? Many Christians will reach different conclusions to others, same sex marriage is a good example. But it is CERTAINLY about reading the Gospels, the Good News.
I am going to close by asking you the reader, do you regularly open up the four Christian Gospels? 5/6 times a year would count. If you do comment yes. If you don't I will say there is a good case that you should and that as we in Britain lose that habit so too will our national character change and not for the better.
Here's the deal, you do not randomly get good governance or corporate probity. Both of these seem worryingly lacking in post Christian Britain. When someone says Human Rights are god given or are naturally inallienable, who's right? I grant in the first instance Human Rights come from our own assertions. That's the record and like museums who "preserve in perpetuity" there's nothing inallienable in them, certainly not in the atheistic humanistic world. Of itself the world of nature, the one that has no creator, is red in tooth and claw. It may offer some form of gaia, not all the violence within it may be simply random. but there is in the world order, enough creature eating, enough volcanos to make naive claims that humanity can answer all its own questions, just that, naive.
Put simply the idea of the judgement of God, even the wrath of God is practically very sensible. Unless humans can find a moral structure by which to be held to account, all sorts of horrors will unfold. Professing the Christian faith does not guarantee good answers, the experience of Roman Catholicism and Nazisim in World War Two indicates that. But throw it all away, deny the history which concluded that in Christ's example there was an exemplar of the way humans should conduct business is to invite the chaos that the last 30/40 years of British life is full of.
It was very interesting that in the Easter row other religions rowed in behind Britain's Christianity. So did Jack Straw go out of his way to acknowledge David Cameron's view. The point of my opener was to say this is not arcane discussion. It has every day implications. We see the consequences in liberalising licenseing laws and the binge drinking and the NHS bill that followed.
So what sort of Christian should you be? I am not telling you, Christianity comes in a huge array of forms including David Cameron's woffly version. It is not a neat format and even those who tell you that there is a book of answers, are not quite right IMHO. It is an experience. It is about reflecting on the nature of love and grace. It is about asking non-believers what grace means to them? Many Christians will reach different conclusions to others, same sex marriage is a good example. But it is CERTAINLY about reading the Gospels, the Good News.
I am going to close by asking you the reader, do you regularly open up the four Christian Gospels? 5/6 times a year would count. If you do comment yes. If you don't I will say there is a good case that you should and that as we in Britain lose that habit so too will our national character change and not for the better.
Thursday, 3 April 2014
A new county hall in Ashington
Ah well, nothing like moving county hall to Ashington. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-26843925 . Now Plashetts would have had a frisson.
Council HQ sale 'could save £13m'
www.bbc.co.uk
More than £13m could be saved through the sale of a council's headquarters, it is claimed.
Want to see more from BBC News?
Robert Forsythe Journal take http://www.thejournal.co.uk/.../northumberland-county... . We were told unitary council was about saving money and yet there has been little evidence of the success of that since the districts were abolished. Northumberland would be best governed with three unitary councils and then the North and the West would not be bled by the South East.
- Robert Forsythe Sir John Hall commenting about the Ashington move "“The only way the town centre is going to be regenerated is by this bold move by the county council.” Heard all that before about Prudhoe "Robert, this shopping centre project MUST go ahead or the town will die". Dramatic words from people who do not have a Plan B. Prudhoe has shown it was not that desperate (although a new town centre so long as it was QUALITY would be nice). Is Ashington so dependent on one thought that having got rid of coal it HAS to have local government bureaucracy? It is all old fashioned thought, we must have our pet dreams and put all our eggs in one basket.
Monday, 10 February 2014
Prudhoe Community High School
Last autumn Prudhoe Community High School failed an Ofsted and was placed in Special Measures. You can read the Ofsted report here. Also subsequent correspondence. In particular the report of 14th January 2014 which appears to have precipated Dr Iain Shaw's departure as Head from 31st January 2014.
I have shown some reluctance to make comment. For reasons which bear little relationship to this crisis and reflect a decision we wanted our daughter to make, our child is at Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham. We are not parents, I am not a politician, I may be a commentator but I am not a schools expert although I do slot a PGCE into my CV and my wife has read very many Ofsted reports professionally. She was taught a mantra "prepare for the next Ofsted, the day after the last report arrives".
Over recent days I can honestly say people have taken me aside in the street to air their concerns, so I do feel a need to make some comment. The biggest problem as I see it is the multi-faceted nature of the challenge.
I would identify six issues
The Ofsted
The New Building and Academy
The County Council
Middle Schools
The Fuse
Communications & Governance
The Ofsted: the school has badly failed an Ofsted and whatever one thinks of the process, it is what is there, it is in many respects a tick box formula and the content of both the Ofsted and the 14th January letter cannot be ignored - the tenor of the 14th January letter is that this has happened.
The New Building and Academy. A large area of the challenge is that a new school is desperately needed. Neither of the two major parties have exactly served Prudhoe well over this although the current MP has tried very hard. In the pipeline there is money for a new school but is that imperilled by the current crisis? No imperillment says Councillor Anne Dale. It has been said often including by the Chair of Governors in the Journal that the usual outcome to Special Measures is a change to an academy or closure. It must be borne in mind that this is not a large secondary school. Closure does not really seem realistic. The nearest secondary Charles Thorpe in Ryton is in a different authority. Ponteland and Hexham are not straightforward to reach. An academy which became a new school? Open hands? Who would do that? Emmanuel from Gateshead? Is the town ready for a religious foundation? I am a Christian but I would not want my child taught Creationism as anything other than a myth. That has been an issue in the past there.
The prospect of a new school also interacts with the county service which as part of the set of inspections of last autumn was judged badly by Ofsted and then the question arises: how do Middle Schools fit into all this change? How do you plan to build a new school without knowing the future of Middle Schools? Whether they stay or not directly impacts on what you build into a new High School. Unless you want a load of portakabin classrooms springing up around the new school. I predict that the fate of the local Middle Schools and any new secondary school in Prudhoe is intimately linked.
At the Prudhoe School itself there are two specific areas that cross my radar. The highly innovative Fuse Centre which should be a pride and joy turned out to have a very specific negative role in the Ofsted report. Funnily enough the Fuse is where a sense of unease started several years ago. In turn these stories fuel a debate about how the Hexham Courant reports Prudhoe which neatly links to............
Communications: It does damage to read at http://www.pchs.org.uk/?p=3552
"Ofsted Inspectors will be visiting school on Tuesday 22 October 2013, and Wednesday 23 October 2013.
Their report will be published on our Ofsted page when complete". And this is not updated as of 10th February and there is no live link to the Ofsted report. Reflect: completely new people may be thinking of moving into the new housing estates in Prudhoe and they will expect accurate information.
Whatever the rights and wrongs and outcomes of the situation, I will say the following and hold it as pure common sense. We are in the 21st century, people expect websites and facebooks to be accurate and informed from public institutions and we expect open-ness. If action plans are published on a school website there is no need for the Journal or the Courant to be an interface. For my money as a matter of urgency the school website needs to come clean about the Ofsted situation. It also needs to publish a clear and accurate list of governors. I could not find that today. And in the case of the chair of governors, a list of all similar public offices previously held.
(Some reading this will wish to note this parallel story in Cumbria).
UPDATE FRIDAY 14th FEB 2014
Last Monday Deborah Reeman from Morpeth King Edward VI (open Leadership Letter PDF) school arrived as a new headteacher for Prudhoe CHS. Over Thurday /Friday this week a combination of Messrs Gove/Opperman (our MP) announced that the school would be rebuilt. The exact phrase of "within two years" appeared in the Hexham Courant. Other coverage is in The Journal and Guy Opperman's own blog. What strikes me as the important matter of what year's the rebuild is for (and thus how Middle Schools are affected) has not been stated.
UPDATE SATURDAY 15th FEB 2014
Two key local politicians make it clear the new school build is like for like and no changes in the Prudhoe School pyramid for Middle Schools follow.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY 2nd JULY 2014.
The school's woes continue and the entire governing body have resigned en masse. OFSTED remain dis-satisfied. http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/governors-resign-after-prudhoe-community-7361384
The chair of governors Eileen Burt has no comment to make. The latest Section 8 report (May) which precipitated this is available here http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/122351 .
I have shown some reluctance to make comment. For reasons which bear little relationship to this crisis and reflect a decision we wanted our daughter to make, our child is at Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham. We are not parents, I am not a politician, I may be a commentator but I am not a schools expert although I do slot a PGCE into my CV and my wife has read very many Ofsted reports professionally. She was taught a mantra "prepare for the next Ofsted, the day after the last report arrives".
Over recent days I can honestly say people have taken me aside in the street to air their concerns, so I do feel a need to make some comment. The biggest problem as I see it is the multi-faceted nature of the challenge.
I would identify six issues
The Ofsted
The New Building and Academy
The County Council
Middle Schools
The Fuse
Communications & Governance
The Ofsted: the school has badly failed an Ofsted and whatever one thinks of the process, it is what is there, it is in many respects a tick box formula and the content of both the Ofsted and the 14th January letter cannot be ignored - the tenor of the 14th January letter is that this has happened.
The New Building and Academy. A large area of the challenge is that a new school is desperately needed. Neither of the two major parties have exactly served Prudhoe well over this although the current MP has tried very hard. In the pipeline there is money for a new school but is that imperilled by the current crisis? No imperillment says Councillor Anne Dale. It has been said often including by the Chair of Governors in the Journal that the usual outcome to Special Measures is a change to an academy or closure. It must be borne in mind that this is not a large secondary school. Closure does not really seem realistic. The nearest secondary Charles Thorpe in Ryton is in a different authority. Ponteland and Hexham are not straightforward to reach. An academy which became a new school? Open hands? Who would do that? Emmanuel from Gateshead? Is the town ready for a religious foundation? I am a Christian but I would not want my child taught Creationism as anything other than a myth. That has been an issue in the past there.
The prospect of a new school also interacts with the county service which as part of the set of inspections of last autumn was judged badly by Ofsted and then the question arises: how do Middle Schools fit into all this change? How do you plan to build a new school without knowing the future of Middle Schools? Whether they stay or not directly impacts on what you build into a new High School. Unless you want a load of portakabin classrooms springing up around the new school. I predict that the fate of the local Middle Schools and any new secondary school in Prudhoe is intimately linked.
At the Prudhoe School itself there are two specific areas that cross my radar. The highly innovative Fuse Centre which should be a pride and joy turned out to have a very specific negative role in the Ofsted report. Funnily enough the Fuse is where a sense of unease started several years ago. In turn these stories fuel a debate about how the Hexham Courant reports Prudhoe which neatly links to............
Communications: It does damage to read at http://www.pchs.org.uk/?p=3552
"Ofsted Inspectors will be visiting school on Tuesday 22 October 2013, and Wednesday 23 October 2013.
Their report will be published on our Ofsted page when complete". And this is not updated as of 10th February and there is no live link to the Ofsted report. Reflect: completely new people may be thinking of moving into the new housing estates in Prudhoe and they will expect accurate information.
Whatever the rights and wrongs and outcomes of the situation, I will say the following and hold it as pure common sense. We are in the 21st century, people expect websites and facebooks to be accurate and informed from public institutions and we expect open-ness. If action plans are published on a school website there is no need for the Journal or the Courant to be an interface. For my money as a matter of urgency the school website needs to come clean about the Ofsted situation. It also needs to publish a clear and accurate list of governors. I could not find that today. And in the case of the chair of governors, a list of all similar public offices previously held.
(Some reading this will wish to note this parallel story in Cumbria).
UPDATE FRIDAY 14th FEB 2014
Last Monday Deborah Reeman from Morpeth King Edward VI (open Leadership Letter PDF) school arrived as a new headteacher for Prudhoe CHS. Over Thurday /Friday this week a combination of Messrs Gove/Opperman (our MP) announced that the school would be rebuilt. The exact phrase of "within two years" appeared in the Hexham Courant. Other coverage is in The Journal and Guy Opperman's own blog. What strikes me as the important matter of what year's the rebuild is for (and thus how Middle Schools are affected) has not been stated.
UPDATE SATURDAY 15th FEB 2014
Two key local politicians make it clear the new school build is like for like and no changes in the Prudhoe School pyramid for Middle Schools follow.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY 2nd JULY 2014.
The school's woes continue and the entire governing body have resigned en masse. OFSTED remain dis-satisfied. http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/governors-resign-after-prudhoe-community-7361384
The chair of governors Eileen Burt has no comment to make. The latest Section 8 report (May) which precipitated this is available here http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/122351 .
Monday, 27 January 2014
Prudhoe faces yet another development crisis?
How many people work full time for Prudhoe? Is the Homes and Communities Agency really the Homes Agency? What is 21st century development?
Work back through my blog and over several years around 2010 there were many blog posts over the Town Centre. Prudhoe should have a new town centre fit for purpose in a mushrooming town. An area was zoned in the 1960s. It remains undeveloped to this day. At great effort its landowner in summer 2012 finally got planning permission only for his prime partner to walk away. The result on a site surrounded by neighbours is long term planning blight. It is a very unfortunate outcome. In my view the project failed because its landlord totally lacked the vision to deliver an excellent proposal respecting all his neighbours and their many concerns as well as the geography of the site. Not everyone can be kept happy all the time but unless most people are kept happy most of the time things do not work. The project that was offered to Prudhoe was simply second rate, 1960s rather than 21st century, "good" should not be good enough.
That is a preamble to saying "it is all about to happen again". Move a mile and more from the town centre and you reach the valley of the Stanley Burn. An area largely of woodland, defined Green Belt and as it happens wholly inside the Derwent Valley Heritage Landscape and subject to a very large upcoming HLF project. Within it lies Prudhoe Hospital, the link is to an English Heritage and English Partnerships report from 2008 which makes sound reading. That explains the historic context and at 1.1 says:
In 2005 English Heritage (EH) and English Partnerships (EP) began jointly to explore the use of Historic Characterisation (HC) in preliminary regeneration planning. Three experimental pilot projects were carried out to test various methods using former hospital sites - Graylingwell in Chichester, Hanham Hall near Bristol, and the present study, Prudhoe, in the Tyne Valley. EH and EP intend to use the results of the pilots to produce generic guidance for the use of HC on sites of similar scale and levels of complexity.
EH and EP believe that conducting HC at the pre-masterplanning stage can make a positive contribution to the planning and regeneration process. Such early characterisation is not intended to replace archaeological evaluations or the traditional detailed surveys of architectural fabric that might be needed at later stages to inform detailed design or as mitigation. Instead, HC offers something new for planning and design teams: a forward-looking and contextual understanding of a site’s historic development and present day historically-derived character that can be drawn upon to inform the masterplan for a site.
Work back through my blog and over several years around 2010 there were many blog posts over the Town Centre. Prudhoe should have a new town centre fit for purpose in a mushrooming town. An area was zoned in the 1960s. It remains undeveloped to this day. At great effort its landowner in summer 2012 finally got planning permission only for his prime partner to walk away. The result on a site surrounded by neighbours is long term planning blight. It is a very unfortunate outcome. In my view the project failed because its landlord totally lacked the vision to deliver an excellent proposal respecting all his neighbours and their many concerns as well as the geography of the site. Not everyone can be kept happy all the time but unless most people are kept happy most of the time things do not work. The project that was offered to Prudhoe was simply second rate, 1960s rather than 21st century, "good" should not be good enough.
That is a preamble to saying "it is all about to happen again". Move a mile and more from the town centre and you reach the valley of the Stanley Burn. An area largely of woodland, defined Green Belt and as it happens wholly inside the Derwent Valley Heritage Landscape and subject to a very large upcoming HLF project. Within it lies Prudhoe Hospital, the link is to an English Heritage and English Partnerships report from 2008 which makes sound reading. That explains the historic context and at 1.1 says:
1.1
Context of the Prudhoe historic characterisation
In 2005 English Heritage (EH) and English Partnerships (EP) began jointly to explore the use of Historic Characterisation (HC) in preliminary regeneration planning. Three experimental pilot projects were carried out to test various methods using former hospital sites - Graylingwell in Chichester, Hanham Hall near Bristol, and the present study, Prudhoe, in the Tyne Valley. EH and EP intend to use the results of the pilots to produce generic guidance for the use of HC on sites of similar scale and levels of complexity.
EH and EP believe that conducting HC at the pre-masterplanning stage can make a positive contribution to the planning and regeneration process. Such early characterisation is not intended to replace archaeological evaluations or the traditional detailed surveys of architectural fabric that might be needed at later stages to inform detailed design or as mitigation. Instead, HC offers something new for planning and design teams: a forward-looking and contextual understanding of a site’s historic development and present day historically-derived character that can be drawn upon to inform the masterplan for a site.
That sounds splendid. It is only since last summer that the outcome by what is now the Homes and Communities Agency has become clearer with the notion that outline planning permission will be sought soon.
This is the result:
There is a new hospital: tick. There is one new development called Humbles Wood, ongoing now. Okay. Alarm bells begin. Two major new developments have happened, Moor Road has received no attention and no access beyond the car and the foot is provided.
And so we reach the last few weeks and the appearance of this diagram. For all this effort from EP and EH what have we got? A project to build not a community, let alone one respecting its context, but a plan to knock as much down as is possible and build 375 homes? Where will these people work? How will they get to where they work? Where are the employment opportunities on site? How are the homeworkers and self employed going to be faciliated?
The point of the Characterisation was to start a debate! It was to lead to something like the Crichton solution. But it appears wholly derailed. Why?
Because as this visualisation appeared, people have started to ask questions. There are two listed properties which the developers HAVE to respect. The Hall and the Walled Garden. They will respect them. The developer knows that. That does not mean Community benefit will follow and in a narrow sense that does not have to be. However there are people in the community who want a crack at the walled garden and I would think it incumbent on the developer to talk closely with them. There is a reasonable chance that this will happen.
But what about the rest of this huge site and this:
or
The top picture shows the 1930s recreation pavilion and figure 17:5 in the EH report shows it in all its new glory. Find that. The bottom picture is one of the resident blocks which could be adapted in various ways into outstanding housing of character. A character to retain the Garden Village character of the original location and which justified EH's initial interest.
Only a development which creates a community and offers workspace in a special and characterful context will do. That means respecting, some, not all, of what there is.
That is not what the HCA Gentoo proposal currently does. It does the BARE MINIMUM to respect legal obligation. Its primary aim appears to be the short term gain of as much profit as possible and leaving Prudhoe to pick up the pieces. And what are those pieces, 375 new homes, no public transport and a massive traffic jam at Blaydon Roundabout or Ovingham Bridge. There is no contextual planning. There is no notion that a B road from Horsley over the Tyne and through this environment to Ebchester would be a good idea. There is just nothing apart from we want to demolish everything we can and build 375 homes and walk away. That is not community building!!! Gentoo - the Sunderland social housing organisation say of themselves "Our vision is to improve the Art of Living beyond imagination".
I am saying this now because Prudhoe has a Community Arts Project looking for a home. I approached HCA asking that we might be allowed to look inside the Recreation Pavilion. I was sent away with a flea in my ear (by email) and told the building will be demolished. It has no protection and because even EH could not find its original architect's name unlikely to get any. It should have a considerate owner. It does not. It is Prudhoe's De La Warr pavilion. No kidding, it is what it can be.
It all sounds as if the "Prudhoe is there to be done unto by its landlords" complex is alive and well again. Urgent action by the Town Council, our two County Councillors, the Community Partnership (which is certainly alive to all this) and our MP is needed. There is a difference this time around, we have another MP and he is well briefed on the issues:
Saturday 25th January 2014.
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