How long before Lynn gridlock causes someone to die?
IT'S frustrating at worst I suppose, in the grand scheme of things (and at the end of the day, as my granddad used to like saying), to be stuck in Lynn's chaotic traffic.
But it must be terrifying to be stuck in Lynn's traffic while lying seriously ill in the back of an ambulance with blue lights flashing and siren sounding and going nowhere.
It must also be awful to be the driver of a vehicle in such a predicament.
And such a prediament occurred as I sat padlocked in the gridlocked traffic in Wisbech Road approaching Southgates roundabout just before 9am on Tuesday.
I heard the siren for a long time before I saw the ambulance, so slow was its progress.
Drivers were doing their best to make a space for it, but most had no room for manoeuvre.
I am sure we all held our breath as it squeezed through the narrowest of alleys created between opposing queues of traffic.
And I am sure we all breathed sighs of relief as it eventually carried on its way, out of our way and out of our collective responsibility.
They were scary moments and made me think, will we reach a terrible moment when Lynn's atrocious traffic problems cause someone to die in the back of a gridlocked 999 ambulance?
So which bright spark drew up a programme of works which allowed work on the southern bypass to go ahead at the same time as work on the only other route into town from the west, the Cut Bridge.
We're told its going to take four months to complete the bypass work.
And work on the Cut Bridge has already been going on for weeks. Why does it take so long?
A few years ago I had a holiday on Majorca, and rented a hire car. We left our apartment one morning just as a gang was setting up for work on a main road. By the time we returned at teatime the gang had packed up and gone. And where they had been was a newly-constructed roundabout, built in a day and the road marked up. It was quite incredible... by British standards.
A team of two completed the groundworks and laid a substantial patio for me a couple of months ago, putting together an intricate repeated pattern of differing shaped and sized slabs and paviours. They completed the job in two days.
So why is it taking months for roadworkers to relay a few slabs either side of Millfleet?
Despite an impressive array of heavy-duty and hard-core machinery their progress has been painfully slow.
In fact there have been many days when I have driven past when there has been no activity at all. And lots of days when many men have gathered... to drink tea, chat and talk on mobile phones.
To quote my granddad again: "Council workers, they've got two speeds... dead slow and stop!"
For crying out loud.... GET ON WITH IT!
HERE'S the usual erudite response from keen Purfleet reader Nick Vinehill, of Snettisham:
Purfleet attributes a lack of public awareness about Iceland's intensive role in global finance as being responsible for why councils like Norfolk and Breckland are now lumbered with its massive debt defaults.
Many Tory and New Labour local authorities throughout the UK have always gambled council tax money on the international money markets; a practice that's been deftly obscured from proper electoral scrutiny when it comes to political parties presenting their local manifestos at election times.
Until the outbreak of this financial crisis, when the invisible hand of the market was booming with credit, local authorities could easily get away with gambling public money in this way. The invisible monetary rewards earned is how council tax payers were duped into believing that de-regulation, competitive tendering and privatisation (neoliberalism) will provide democratic self governance, small business-friendly environments, low taxes, choice and cheaper services!
Moreover, the plight of Norfolk and Breckland councils lays bare the central issues governing the debate about unitary councils engulfing local regional councils like West Norfolk, an item which the Lynn News has covered to a great extent.
While the proposal has seemingly been put on hold, any neutral reader might think that West Norfolk itself was some kind of third world pariah state judging by the fears expressed mainly from local Tories about the prospect of this happening. In reality there's only one reason why such reorganisation is feared and it has nothing to do with their belief that it will undermine democracy or increase costs but more to do with the difficulty they'll have in pushing the failed causes of neoliberalism further if electoral boundaries are extended where more of the population feel the strain!
Their motives are quite ludicrous anyway, particularly today when central government is actually nationalising parts of the banking industry because their very ideology is imploding all around us.
Capitalism whether you like it or hate it, thrives by dividing and ruling and for its leading advocates they regard smaller less-populated authorities like West Norfolk with differing social needs and resources as a useful means to play off against the urban interests of Norwich.
All this arouses all types of conflicting public emotions like for example, Norwich is somehow an alien place to West Norfolk, a view starkly conveyed by Barb Lawson (Don't want to be part of Norwich, Letters, Lynn News).
Purfleet, later in his article, rightly blames greedy bankers and their lending practices, but in reality their practices are symptomatic of the wider crisis not the cause. Despite all the excuses and scapegoats trotted out by mainstream politicians and economists the British economy out of all the other G7 economies has been one of the most corporate-friendly environments since 1979.
For example, there's been nothing remotely socialist about this Labour Government since its election in 1997. Trade unions have been marginalised, strikes have been minimal, public-sector workers are some of the lowest paid in Europe, yet still the system needs bailing out by taxpayers because borrowing and lending has vastly exceeded profit levels and economic growth.
Albeit a gross contravention of the free market ethic they believe in, what New Labour (supported by the Tories) is doing by injecting billions into the system to achieve what they think is a return to that system is sheer "economics of the madhouse" which, apart from the odd flurry in share prices, won't achieve anything in the long-run because it doesn't address the issue of low economic growth.
As it fails, which it will do, it will always be the low paid and pensioners, etc., who had no wish to be part of this global gambling casino in the first place who will have to pick up the tab in the form of higher income and council taxes and cuts in vital services.
And a comment from another reader on the problems caused by irresponsible cyclists in The Walks:
Once again this morning I had another incident with a cyclist. I am a dog walker and a mother of a small child who has just started to walk with me and the dog on our daily rounds.
I am also a keen cyclist and, yes, they have their place too. I do not appreciate being shouted at in front of my child about cyclist rights.
This is certainly not the first time this has happened. I have been verbally abused, tutted at and spat at many times over this matter.
I was hoping the Lynn News could print a copy of the cycle network, or something needs to be done before someone gets hurt.
My little boy had a close shave, not even an apology...
M.TAYLOR
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Weather for King's Lynn
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
