Weekly(?) column for
June 2005
June 2005
11th June 2005
As some of you know, we have the odd animal and my wife keeps looking in 'Dog World' and spots something like 100 acres for about £100 and says we need the space – only it's somewhere in the middle of no-where.
I end up saying what about the fencing cost and the nearest medical care will be hours away – unlike here.
Did you know the two groups of people who need the most care and cost the most are the young and the elderly? Well, it must be true as our local health authority have managed (mis-managed?) their funding and guess what, the new maternity unit (you can't get younger) has already closed and the elderly care bit will go by September. Expect the rest to go by the end of 2006 or it may hang onto 2010 (election 2007, remember). I visualise a nice development site suddenly becoming available near the centre of Hemel town stretching from Hillfield Road to St Albans Road and Turners Hill to the Marlowes centre.
All this means that we will just have to make more use of Stoke Mandeville then.
Finally this week, is it me or has the local 'phone book got so local as you might as well work to contact someone instead of ringing them. The area is getting smaller and smaller and the book thinner and thinner.
18th June 2005
The penny has finally dropped with our ‘local’ hospital.
The government pays lip service to providing locally provided and organised services. Powers are transferred to local government and health services have ‘Trusts’ to ensure local people have a say in local services provided - then government combines the need for minimum service provision (to stop the perceived post code lottery) with funding that seems to remain static, well I suppose you could say that keeping pace with inflation is increasing funding.
This seems to be Hertfordshire wide (oh yeah? and the rest) and a number of our Counties MP’s are having a meeting with the powers that be to try and resolve the matter. Good luck is all I can say!
You will be pleased to hear that the Dacorum skateboard park will be up and running by the end of the month, so that’s all right then. Locally both the Town and Borough Councils have salted money away for the Berkhamsted one, maybe it would be better just to provide a bus service to Hemel and the problem would be solved - hang on, they could go to Tring, Chesham or Wendover - a circular bus would be the answer!
25th June 2005
You can tell our government is on borrowed time as the economy is about to go belly up (government borrowings up, tax revenues down - whoops!)
As I see it, we have a proposal to introduce identity cards, so you know who you are. Then you ban smoking in public places, so you can’t pop down the pub for a swift half and a fag. Then you have to pop outside to ‘have a drag’ or have your fellow drinkers ‘shop’ you. Then you stub it out on the pavement and the new environment act gets you. Ah haa, you say, they have to catch me first!, remember the ID card? All part of cunning plot number 1.
Cunning plot number 2 is to stop you actually getting to work to pay the fine you incurred when you popped into the pub above. In the interests of the environment, you will be charged silly money to commute to work by car, only you will then be charged silly money to travel by public transport as public transport cannot cope. You then give up commuting as you are paying out more than you are earning. So you look work nearer home, only all the employment (aka brownfield) sites have had houses built on them to house the workers who are needed to service the residents of the cities as they need to commute due to the high cost of housing.
You think I’m being silly, don’t you? Well, I’m not and just you think about the way things are going!
More soon!
