Perhaps it was appropriate that Red Ed's announcements were made in Brighton, a city where the loonies are already in control. Our Council is controlled by the Green Party, but most of the Green councillors represent wards in the city centre where green means a few blades of grass and from where few of the residents ever venture into true greenery. Well, that's how it seems to many of us who live in the outlying parts such as Westdene and Patcham. The Council's latest scheme involves Ditchling Road.
Perhaps I should explain that there are three main routes into the city centre. From the west, traffic uses the bypass and Dyke Road; from the north, London Road; and from the east, Lewes Road. That, at any rate, has been the usual practice since the bypass was built some 20 or 30 years ago. Until the Council "improved" the Lewes Road and, as a result, caused gridlock. Now a lot of drivers prefer to take a slightly longer route, travelling up Coldean Lane and then into the city by Ditchling Road. It just so happens that, from the bypass a tongue of the South Downs National Park stretches southwards some way into the city, with Ditchling Road running through it for about a mile. The northern stretch of this road has fields on both sides, then a stretch of unfenced grassland, including part of the field known as 39 Acres where many people walk their dogs, then a golf course on one side. This part of the road is subject to the national speed limit, ie 60mph. The Council's idea is to put cattle grids at each end, allow free grazing of cattle and sheep, reduce the width of the road, reduce the speed limit to 40mph, remove road markings, install a gravel-surfaced cycle/pedestrian track, bus stops, picnic areas and pedestrian crossings. The aim? To improve access to the National Park. All they will succeed in doing (if the scheme goes ahead) is to make the road more dangerous (free-roaming sheep and cattle on a major route into the city?) and reduce the number of people who use this valuable amenity.
Granted, the Council has asked for public consultation by means of a survey on their web site. There were 5 questions. Four of those questions were designed to elicit favourable responses, the fifth was a space for further comments. Then there were a raft of questions about "equality". No doubt, the comments will be ignored and the favourable responses will be a substantial majority in favour of the proposal.
Cynical of me? I call it realism.
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The heart of old Brighton is an area bounded by East Street, North Street, West Street and King's Road (the seafront). There used to be a South Street but that was washed away in a storm hundreds of years ago. (And no, Skip, I don't remember it!) This area is known as the Lanes because so many of the streets are just that. This is Meeting House Lane.
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Here, in Anderson, we have North Street, which is the heart of downtown; West Street, which is of almost no consequence; East Street, which is almost as important as North Street, but since it doesn't cross the railroad tracks, isn't; South Street, which is closer to the center of town than North Street (and is a half mile north of where I live; and Center Street(s), which parallel each other (there are an East and West Center) as they run north-south on either side of the railroad and old highway.
You can tell by the street names the founders had lots of imagination.
By coincidence, our North Street used to be the commercial centre with the big banks, insurance companies and so forth. East Street had the posh shops, while West Street had nightclubs and "working girls".
Everybody knows South Street is the hippest street in town. ;-)
Yea, it's so hip it's under water!
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