Do the gods want to destroy us?

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.  It really doesn't matter who coined that phrase, whether it was Euripides, Sophocles, Aristides or any of the other boys in the band.  But I rather think that the gods must be fed up with some of the officials working for Brighton & Hove City Council.  Please note, I wrote "officials", not "councilors" - although now I come to think of it. . .

I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog - and not so very long ago, if my memory serves (which it often doesn't - that Brighton suffers each summer from a locust-like plague.  The travellers seem to like Brighton as a holiday destination and they arrive in their dozens.  As I have also said before, I have no objection whatsoever to people living a nomadic life is that is what they choose, but I do object when they think they have the right to damage parks and gardens in the city and leave behind a disgusting mess that we ratepayers have to pay to have cleaned up.  Despite our Green-Party-led Council telling us "we must respect minority groups", they have been prodded into putting locked gates at vehicular access point to parks and building up bunds or planting large, timber posts along the edges of parks where they abut roads.  But the travellers usually just use angle grinders to cut the gates, diggers to remove bunds or pull out the posts.

This week, though, travellers descended on Brighton's Wild Park, a nature reserve on the outskirts of the city.  The Council had not long managed to evict another group of travellers from the site and had installed a locked gate to prevent a further incursion, but the new arrivals had simply driven over the earth hump beside the gate.  The police were about to issue what is known as a Section 61 Notice which would have given powers to remove the travellers immediately when a Council official, worried that somebody might hurt themselves driving over the humps, unlocked the gate.  The Council will now have to spend thousands of pounds taking court action to evict the travellers!

And the same thing has happened at Surrenden Field, another small park.  The Council opened the gate for the travellers!

As I said, those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

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Another look at Saltdean beach taken from the same spot as yesterday's picture.  But the beach to the east was almost empty.