As I get older, I'm looking forward with less enthusiasm than I used to. It seems that everything is changing so rapidly and we don't seem able to do anything about it. The last time I can remember a similar feeling was  at the time of the 'Cuban crisis' in the early 60's, but at least at that time we had a lot of good things going on. The music was fantastic, the fashions different and even the economy was doing well. We had our own Town Council and we seemed to be in control.
What brought about this recent change? I think it was the sudden realisation that we have to go cap in hand to actually do anything. I was at a meeting in mid October and the one thing that stood out was everyone applying to someone else for funding to do something in our town. Our Town!
There were representative from various statuary bodies who going round the country attending other meetings to find out how to obtain funding to pay for projects that our elected representatives wanted to do in Our Town.
This 'system' has to be wasteful and undemocratic and I know it can cost thousands to make a case as anyone who has been involved in trying to get lottery funding will testify. It appears that funding is available from so many 'quangos' that the Borough Council even appointed a highly paid officer to fight his way through the funding maze and naturally, he was 'good value for money', but nobody seems to question why it has to be this way.
A good example was the 'By-pass enhancement project' where Berkhamsted was one of 6 market towns who had highway project students given a free reign to do what they liked – and they did. All funded by the Department for Transport. Only, no funding was put I place to either finish the job or correct the errors. In our case, the highway lighting at the eastern end of the town was never finished and County have no money to complete it – amongst all the other silly defects such as the town centre pavements and 'pedestrian crossings'.
The current town improvements 'planned' include assorted additional housing which are self funding, improving parking facilities which somehow 'needs' a larger supermarket to fund it, a 'Town Square' which actually evolved from a 1960's plan (told you it was a good period) which got buried in a pile of faceless concrete by our Town Council and trying to improve the towns biggest asset – the Grand Union Canal.
The Canal & Riverside Partnership (CARP) has been revived under our new Town Council, but sees it as a place of leisure. I'm afraid I see it as a mixed use facility with non-perishable freight being an ideal candidate. As even Sainsburys and Tesco are running pilot schemes, is it as far fetched as you think?
We have immigration at a high level, we have housing lying empty, but building new ones, we have the imminent closure of the local hospital were I was born without a suitable replacement being put in place, motor vehicles are 'parked' everywhere, the police are generally invisible and the town has charged from a market town with a variety of employment opportunities to being part of the commuter belt.
And young people still say the same as I did – there's nothing to do! I'm feeling a bit better now, something hasn't changed!  

Just 10 years ago I went on one of the Borough Council 'jollies' to a waste conference in Torquay. Perhaps not the most riveting of subjects, but with Councils today having to re-cycle as much as possible, I thought you might be interested in one of the things I learnt.

The big problem that Councils have, is trying to get over to the public what can be re-cycled and what cannot. The same problem existed all that time ago as well. One of the 'side shows' was a presentation by a company that had produced a prototype of a process to solve these problems. It was simple really, put in any plastic and it would 'solve' the problem.

Perhaps I'd better explain in simple terms. Plastics are made out of various chemicals and you mix them in different quantities to get the product you require. This means that the process should be able to be reversed. The company had devised a process whereby you would put assorted plastics into a hopper and the mix would pass through the machine separating out the various chemicals and oils for reuse. The 'waste' out at the far end was a fraction of the volume of the original plastics. It also had the benefit of producing raw materials to make more of the plastics we know and love.

I just wonder why after 10 years if any problems would needed resolving, they should have been sorted and the process put into place even if on a local small scale, a bit like the 'fridge mountain' on the Isle of Wight, I suppose.

Since the November article was written, the 'Hospital Saga' continues unabated.
As I write, the chief executive, resigned under pressure from the Hemel MP, the Dacorum Hospital Action Group and the public with the new post of deputy chief executive being created. The problem is still there, as the trust continues with it's plans to shift most services to Watford.
The DHAG would like any readers to pass on any problems experienced with the current changes taking place.
For example, my wife was due to have lunch with a 'girlfriend' recently, but it had to be put off as Linda (the girlfriend) had just come back from holiday to be told her elderly mother had been rushed to hospital having fallen down the stairs and broken her hip and tibia. The difficulty is that they live within a couple of hundred years of each other and can see the hospital across 'hospital fields' in Hemel Hempstead, but 'mum' was taken to Watford A&E and that is where she remains.

This is yet another example of the Trust saying one thing and doing exactly what suits them, as we were promised that patients having to go to Watford A&E would be stabilised there and returned ' within a couple of days' to the local facilities. Linda and her family are now having to drive backwards and forwards (I won't mention public transport at this stage as visiting hours aren't long enough) to Watford instead of a 5 minute walk down the hill.
Strangely, at the end of October, two television programs reminded everyone that we need to keep an eye on our 'Trusts'. The first was 'The Royal' were to raise money for a new maternity unit, it was proposed that a private company should build it (the beginnings of PFI?), but sense prevailed and was turned down as the NHS shouldn't get involved in helping private companies make a profit which was not benefiting was the hospital. This was a drama set in the 60's. A documentary the next evening was set in the 21st century was interviewed someone from the Stafford Health Trust. The words and phrases came out of our very dear departed chief executive if you shut your eyes.

Once again, the ambulance service would solve all the problems being forced on local residents, even though trained emergency paramedics only made up 51% of emergency ambulance crews – which is at least better than the national average of 50%.