Good deeds ignored! Adventures of young people and worries of parents and grandparents. The nanny state !

Yesterday morning, out running, I spotted what looked like a notebook at the edge of the path. Ever nosy, I had to go and investigate. Not a notebook but a passport, a rather soggy one at that! If you are going to lose your passport you should try not do so on a rainy night. We have had loads of dry nights when passports could get lost with impunity but this one appeared to have been lost in Friday or Saturday night’s rain. It was valid until 2027, so I thought maybe the owner would like to have it returned, especially as there are reports of long delays in renewing passports or applying for new ones at the moment. Another shortage of staff problem!

And so I called the emergency contact number listed in the back of the soggy document. The gentleman I spoke to promised to pass a message on to the young lady it belonged to. Nobody contacted me. Eventually through various social media networks, my daughter has found out that the young lady in question, the same age as my eldest granddaughter, lost the passport weeks ago (did it remain beside the path unnoticed in all that time?), has already cancelled it and has applied for a replacement. Well, good luck with that, say I! And I still consider it rather rude that my gesture of good citizenship did not merit even an acknowledgement. So it goes! 

In the continuing saga of my eldest granddaughter and her American visitors I am reliably informed that they have received a parking ticket and, not knowing if they were allowed to remove the notice from their windscreen they drove around for while with it still stuck there! Like fools! my granddaughter commented. For accommodation they had found an Air b&b online. This turns out to be in a rather insalubrious part of central Ashton - hence parking problems - hence the parking ticket. It then transpired that they had not booked a whole flat (apartment to them) as they expected but just a couple rooms, so that when they turned up there were already people using the sitting room and kitchen. They have since booked out of there and into the nearest Travelodge, as originally advised by our rather bossy but well-organised granddaughter. 

On Friday they went to Skipton Castle to admire the ruins and then on to a farm with a petting zoo where they fed calves and stroked furry animals. This bunch of 25 year olds are clearly still in touch with their inner 5 year olds! 

 

 

In the same vein, today they have gone off to Chester Zoo. We have already received photos of elephants and rhinos. 

 

Following our granddaughter’s reports of the American driver needing to be reminded  not to straddle two lanes on the motorway, something that incurred the wrath, not to mention the swearing and rude gestures, of at least one lorry driver, my daughter and I are now both suffering from what she calls the ‘heebie-jeebies”. We will want reports later today of their safe return home!

With safety in mind, how’s this for the nanny state?

“Last month, police officers descended on public green spaces in Stanhope, a 1960s residential estate in Ashford, Kent, to fight crime. Rather than arresting any suspected criminals, officers took away five benches and uprooted low-lying shrubs from small parks. In a since deleted tweet, Ashford Police explained that the benches had provided “places to gather” and their removal would help “design out crime”.

The chief inspector of Ashford Police explained that removing the benches and shrubbery were part of a temporary trial to “prevent antisocial behaviour in hotspot areas”. The idea that providing pleasant places to sit with friends causes crime sounds absurd, but it’s one of a number of controversial urban design principles that British police forces are promoting. Increasingly, these principles are dictating the design of our neighbourhoods: police aren’t just removing benches and bushes, they are demanding a wider raft of changes to architecture and public spaces, including blocking the construction of new cycle paths, dictating the height of garden gates and deciding the orientation of homes.”

As I read this, I thought of all the benches along Spanish streets where the residents of blocks of flats sit out and chat - often elderly residents - and the squares with similar benches, squares that serve as a communal meeting place. Do they worry in Spain about antisocial behaviour in these “places to gather”.

According to this article that kind of action against people meeting on the streets and in the parks of our cities is not a new initiative. It’s not even a consequence of the pandemic and an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid. No, indeed, it has been quietly around for a good while. It’s a police initiative called Secure by Design, dating back to Maggie Thatcher’s time - quelle surprise!

“Founded during the latter years of the Thatcher government, Secured by Design gives police significant influence over the architecture and design of public spaces. Under the programme, officers develop and publish neighbourhood design guides with recommendations such as advocating the “use of single seats or stools set several metres apart” rather than park benches, and warning against “providing too many” footpaths. When planning applications are submitted to local authorities, officers in those areas may object if the proposals do not incorporate their recommendations.”

It has led to the orientation of buildings being turned around, so that, for example, windows of flats do not overlook play areas, in case the “wrong kind of people” move in! And we thought we lived in a free country! The mind boggles!

But then, I know of benches in Manchester centre so designed that you can sit but not stretch out full length on them. We don’t want the homeless sleeping there, after all! Best is the bench outside a city centre church with a statue of Christ reclining there, preventing anyone else from reclining! There you go!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!