Planning LOLs

This is nice, a story with a happy ending for a change.

Last week, I was intermittently staring into space and following Twitter (an activity that unfortunately seems to make up about 80% of my waking hours) and saw that one of my Twitter contacts (called Tom) seemed to be having a bit of a giggle with the planning department at NCC.

Tom and his missus had decided to do the decent thing and get themselves a solar water heating system fitted to their house, which is an excellent thing to do and something that you'd think that NCC would fall over themselves to encourage. Normally you don't need planning permission for these things but Tom lives in a conservation area so it seems he was advised that he did have to. All went well and permission was granted last year.

However just recently he decided to use a different design of system, replacing two of these -

with just one of these -

Now you'd think that would be an improvement. Only one panel instead of two? Apparently not. Here's the first of Tom's several tweets on the decision he initially received -

Yes that's right. Planners at NCC were making a distinction between solar panels that were in character in a conservation area and solar panels that weren't. That's solar panels they're talking about (I think the area concerned is late Victorian/Edwardian but I'm not sure). Perhaps you're supposed to have that lead diamond pattern stuck on to make them look olde worlde.

This from a council that had just loudly trumpeted its new 'low carbon' waste strategy and which is quite happy to bulldoze the Victoria Leisure Centre, which is also in a conservation area by the way. Consistent much?

Here's a later tweet by Tom. I include it because it's such a perfect summing up of the issue at hand -

But, as I said, this story does have a happy ending and NCC does in fact redeem itself. On Saturday, Tom tweeted this -

I actually doubt that fear of NCCLols played any significant part but yes, the planners have backed down. The decision even says that his solar panel counts as 'permitted development' so doesn't even need planning permission after all. That's some climbdown.

Tom says he only mentioned it out loud on Twitter. While I don't think I quite wield the power to strike fear in the hearts of the men and womenfolk of NCC's planning department I do have a few NCC peeps following me. I did retweet a couple of Tom's posts and maybe someone from NCC saw them or Tom's originals and had a quiet word.

So who knows, maybe I did help but I'm more inclined to simply chalk it up to the power of Twitter this time. The main thing is that Tom and his family can get on with saving a bit of fossil fuel which we all benefit from. And perhaps others nearby who want to carry out similar works will have an easier time of it. I just hope he didn't have to spend too much on preparing what appear to have been unnecessary planning applications.

More on the Stonebridge Farm Debacle

Signs of a complete lack of joined up thinking at NCC, on the one hand they are shaving land off Stonebridge Farm but on the other the on Tuesday St Anns and Dales Area Committee is being presented with a draft strategy for developing food growing opportunities in Nottingham which very much relies on facillities like, um, Stonebridge Farm.

To be fair the document acknowledges that -

"... until now there has been no central point to bring together all the work regarding food growing taking place across the Council..."

which is probably at least partly why these situations arise.

The 'Protect Stonebridge City Farm' campaign is encouraging interested parties to attend the area committee meeting which is open to the public and is being held at 7pm in the Committee Room at the Council House later today (Tuesday) 26 January. You can also follow their campaign on 'Twitter'.

Talking of Twitter, NCC's Portfolio Holder for Environment and Climate Change Katrina Bull has been tweeting away about her enthusiasm for locally grown veg and wondering aloud whether it would be possible for such local goodies to be served in school dinners.

Obviously this is to be applauded but she's so far been silent on my requests for her views on the Stonebridge issue.

Maybe you'll have more luck, if you do tweeting you can find her @katrinabull.

Just a Balls Up?

Strange thing appeared on Twitter early this morning, I don't know whether it was just a balls up on the part of the Evening Post or whether they had to later cover it up, either way the link no longer works.


My guess is that a gremlin simply posted an old story because the cuts mentioned look very similar to those detailed in the last budget.

Made me look twice anyway.

No sooner had I written this than this turns up on t'BBC...

...and now this on Eve Post. Original article nowhere to be seen though.

Seems settled then, major cuts at NCC and inflation busting Council Tax rise.

Fair Trade

I've finally decided, after a lengthy evaluation period, that Twitter is useful after all.

There are a couple of councillors on Twitter and one of them has been merrily tweeting away from today's full council meeting. Apparently NCC have just voted unanimously to support Fair Trade goods and to keep its status as a 'Fair Trade City'. Hurrah, they've done something good at last.

This counts as my monthly 'good news' story, I'll go back to being a cynical bastard now.

Update; well Twitter WAS useful until the US conservative spammers turned up.

To Twit or Not To Twit...or Off Topic Question of the Week...

I've been thinking of signing up to that Twitter thingy. Not for any particularly well thought out blog related strategic reasons but because all the big lads in the blog playground seem to have done it and I'm starting to feel a bit left out. Kind of like back in the day when everyone got Raleigh Choppers and I was forced to make do with the hand me down Raleigh Shopper...

But what the devil is it for, thats what I want to know? I'm certainly not going to get into that nonsensical announcing every toilet visit to the world rubbish. The only thing I can think of is to announce when I've put a new post up here and I'm not sure thats the sort of earth shattering news that fellow Twittees would fall over themselves to sign up to.

So tell me fellow bloggers, have you got Twitter? What do you use it for? Has it enhanced your life, or at least boosted your hit rate? Or can I afford to sit this one out (I never did get a Chopper after all)?

Update; have decided to give it a go.