Grand Designs

I have been wanting to tell this story for some time, simply because I find it amusing, and it may serve to illustrate a point. With this story I have posted two pictures of our Town Centre, of which I am quite proud. I like my Town, although I am distressed from time to time with what has happened to it, and believe me, I have been around long enough to see quite a few changes.

The photos show the main street, and the viewer is able to see the effect of pedestrianisation. This used to be a main trunk route, what the Highways people called "The Liverpool to Skegness A 57 Trunk Road" and as such, used to be very busy. Town centre was always very crowded with traffic.

Way back when I was a kid, they promised us a bypass to relieve this traffic, but, as the way things happen in these matters, we had to wait some 40 years for it to come about. When it did, they began to mess about with traffic flows within the town. It seemed that each month would bring a different system - the street you drove DOWN last month, you must drive UP now, sort of thing.

Then they had the bright idea of converting the main street into a pedestrian area, meaning no more traffic. Only one snag exists in that sort of idea - the shops still need servicing, that is, they still need stock, otherwise there would be no point in staying in business. So, service vehicles are permitted access at certain times. Bullion and emergency vehicles are allowed any time. Also, customers like to be able to reach the shops, and being forced to park a mile away and walk the rest, carrying your shopping is not a very good idea. People don't like it, so many go elsewhere!

Being disabled, I have a special permit that allows me to go there in my car at any time to get to the shops, as do others in similar circumstances.

If you will look closely at the picture entitiled "Bridge Place" you will see, in the middle distance, some traffic lights. There is a one - way street which crosses here, from right to left on the picture. You will see that the junction is decorated by four pretty, raised flower beds, and you may also notice that they are fairly close together. Too close!

The one on the right is continually being damaged by trucks as they try to get out of the precinct onto the road. It is, in fact, an acute angle to the left, and it is very difficult for the trucks to manoeuver. They knock the bed down, so it's rebuilt, then they knock it down again, ad infinitum!

As you will see, the pedestrian area is blocked in pretty patterns, mazes heraldic shields and all sorts of pretty patterns. The piece of road at the junction, however, has a story all of its own. At present, it is smooth tarmac, as you will see.

It was not intented to be that way.

This cross piece was intended to be artistic, pretty, contrasting and retarding (slowing down the traffic at the junction). The architects and planners decided that the junction would be made of granite setts. Black granite setts, but not just any granite, it must be Italian granite. Quite why this should be so, I never learned, but it struck me as a bit silly as Scotland has no shortage of the stuff - the whole bloody country is built on granite!

Anyway, Italian it had to be, so it was ordered and was shipped, in containers. The ship carrying the stuff lost the containers overboard in the Bay of Biscay during a freak storm. Of course, the containers floated with the characteristics of a brick, or granite sett!

Panic ensued as they now had a hole in the road with nothing to put in it, so they filled it temporarily with tarmac, and when the replacements arrived by truck all the way from Italy, the tarmac was dug out and the setts inserted.

Congratulations all round as the whole scheme was declared open, and then the "fun" started. The setts had been deliberately placed proud of the road surface: therefore an inbuilt hazard was presented, and the public, being the public, discovered it.

Pedestrians tripped on the setts, cars were damaged and after only a few weeks, the error was acknowledged - the setts were ripped out and dumped, and the road was tarmacked, which is what some people had advocated all along!

Oh, the trees you see were all imported from Belgium. We are not exactly short of trees around here, and there are some most excellent tree nurseries within trucking distance, but no, they had to be imported - they looked better in the scheme of things, you see!

There you have it, story told. I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures, which were taken early doors, before the town had woken up. It does get quite busy as people wander here and there, trying to find what they are seeking, before they get in the car to go to Mansfield, Doncaster, Sheffield or somewhere else where there is a much wider range of shops!