More reasons to drink?

I gather that Morrisons have (rather quietly) applied to be able to sell alcohol 6am-11pm seven days a week from their Morpeth store...

This seems a bit excessive to me on a number of fronts:
i) buying cut price alcohol and drinking at home is already damaging the pub trade in Morpeth and elsewhere, the habit of 'preloading' or drinking before you go out is particularly pernicious
ii) who wants to buy alcohol at six in the morning? Or from a supermarket at 10 or 11pm at night? Are we going to have people popping in to Morrisons for a carry-out on their way home from the pub? Pub staff are used to managing customers who have had too much, and will refuse to serve them. Can we expect supermarket checkout staff to do the same?
iii) And why seven days a week? That's longer than the current opening hours? Ah! Is this part of a cunning plan to extend the opening hours of the supermarket? Are we going to have a 17-hour supermarket in Morpeth?

Anyway - they applied (to NCC) so quietly, that no one has objected so far - and the objection period runs out on Friday (12th). So the Town Council will be discussing it at their meeting tomorrow (Weds 10th) and will probably ask NCC to extend the consultation period.

Hunt the witch?

Wiccan friends of mine are offended by the ‘Hunt the Witch’ promotion by Newgate St shops for Hallowe’en – where you are supposed to seek out stereotypical images of witches in the shop windows. After all, a ‘Hunt the Jew’ promotion with Shakespearian images of Jews wouldn’t be acceptable – so why are Shakespearian images of witches acceptable?

I guess with the Northumbrian witch trials of the 17th century, there is a historic basis. Then again – I don’t know if Rapper Dance traditions are similar to Morris Dance imagery, but if they were – there could be cultural justification for a ‘Find the Moor in Morpeth’ promotion.

Fundamentally though – we do need to be careful that popular imagery does not colour the way we think about any group of people.

Road Closure Warning - Damside

Cheapskate County Council expecting Town Councillors to do their comms work for them for nothing....

Damside closed from Staithes Lane to Telford Bridge Sunday 17th, 24th, 30th Oct
..... Morrisons and the Sanderson Arcade won't be pleased!

"Essential maintenance works are about to be carried out to the A197, Damside, Morpeth. The work involves the removal of the existing surface, laying new surfacing and road markings. Due to the traffic sensitivity of this particular road and the extensive disruption these works would cause during the normal working week, the decision has been made to restrict the carrying out of the works to Sundays only.
The works are intended to be carried out in stages over three consecutive Sundays, starting 17th October 2010. In order to comply with safety regulations relating to required safe working zones for operatives a temporary road closure will be required during the course of the works . A fully signed diversion route will be put in place over this duration. Please find attached a copy of an O.S. plan showing,coloured red, the extent of the surfacing works and the temporary diversion route that will be put in place during the operations."

It's Recycle Week!

Apparently, this coming week (21st-27th June) is Recycle Week – and since this blog is evidently well thought-of, I’ve been approached by a PR company to write something about recycling.

This year, they are focussing on recycling electrical goods – working on the premise that we get too attached to toasters and TVs etc to throw them out when they fail: “our modern reliance on electrical goods and the emotional bonds we form with them prevent people from recycling unused items”. Personally, it’s more a combination of laziness and the strictures of the WEEE directive that stops me from getting rid of electrical goods.
I see the County Council will accept electrical goods at their ‘household waste recovery centres’ and there are lots of charities (eg British Heart Foundation) which will take working electrical goods for re-use.

However, I really don’t like the loose way the term ‘recycling’ is used – true recycling, which is breaking something down into its component materials for re-use is (for me) the lowest level acceptable way to dispose of waste. Electrical goods do contain valuable metals and semi-metals that are worth recovering. But, I’d far rather see more use being made of local repair and refurbishment facilities – creating local jobs and keeping money in the local economy, than wholesale scrap work. And I’ve written several times before about the excellent Free Cycle system, which allows people to give away unwanted stuff, while eBay and Amazon have really rehabilitated the secondhand goods market.

So – before we think about recycling: what about re-sale and re-use, then adaptation and refurbishment, then repair and cannibalisation – and only as a last resort scrapping for component materials.
Of course, it does mean that we need to get the designers to work on adaptability, refurbishment and most importantly design for repair – so that you don’t have to throw away eg whole car headlamp units for want of a lightbulb.

Built-in obsolescence is so 20th century, we need to base 21st century economics on re-use and repair.

Supermarket Wars – the Planning Decision

Several interesting byplays at the special County Council Planning Committee on Monday considering the three supermarket applications: John Taylor is a very good Chair, and Peter Rutherford, the planning officer kept the meeting calm with his slow, deliberate presentations. The councillors themselves seemed to be too aware of likely appeals to go into any detailed discussion, so it went entirely by officer recommendations. The applicants were all preparing the ground for appeals too – and an interesting difference in approach between those who addressed the committee and those who addressed the public. Good presentations from objectors too – with Ken Stait and Marcus Hopper both particularly effective IMO.

OK – enough of the Robert Pollard-style punditry, what happens next?

Well – they went with the least worst option – working on the assumption that one supermarket application had to be approved – with evident sacrifice of the views of the Staithes Lane residents for the perceived greater benefit for Morpeth. And there was an implicit heavy dependency on getting another go when the full application comes in.

I guess we can expect appeals against refusal from both Sainsbury and Tesco’s – and the political cynicism is that they will be persuaded to drop their appeals for deals to become the operator for the Dark Lane site and/or to move into the former M&S Food Only store on the Market Place. I’d also say that there’ll be a bit of a race to bring this forward before the public sector recession hits – and it’ll hit Morpeth bad in the next 18-24 months.

So – I’d imagine Mark Dransfield is quite keen to crack on with his development.

Meanwhile – I still do not recognise that even an edge of town supermarket is needed or will not damage town centre trade.