Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL

I filled in a confidential online MP survey recently about the most common issue that people visit me about in my surgeries. It varies of course, I could have said housing or benefits issues, and they are certainly popular, but after some consultation with my staff, I plumped for neighbours from hell.

It is not that they are the most widespread, but because they are the most difficult to solve, they come back again and again and take up lots of time.

Just what do you do if the person living next door to you is utterly unreasonable: loud music, loud nocturnal comings and goings, dogs barking, scrap metal all over the garden, kids running riot, verbal abuse and threats, stone throwing….the list goes on. What can you do?The police hate cases like this and they tend to take a six of one and half dozen of the other type approach. It is hard for them to intervene meaningfully without clear evidence. Local authorities now have extensive powers but in my experience use them very reluctantly. They have to be our under real pressure to send out the gear to measure noise levels and only prosecute in the rarest of circumstances. I am sure the Anti Social Unit at Plymouth Council is full of hard working people, but I have yet to see them do anything useful to stop one of these situations. If the offender is a tenant, say of a housing association, they have the power to remove them but almost never take sufficiently robust action. After scores of cases that have come my way over the year, I can only think of a handful of successful interventions. Sadly, even mediation rarely achieves anything.
And yet living next door to an utterly unreasonable person can completely ruin your life. I have met plenty of people who have become obsessed by their neighbours – perhaps understandably.
I do not think we need more law, just a greater willingness on the part of the authorities to use the power that they already have. Often, the only way to get them to act is by publicising the nuisance in the local media.It is time councils and landlords took this nuisance much more seriously. Case conferences between the various agencies including police should be called at an early stage and robust plans put in place to catch and prosecute these anti-social neighbours.

posted by Nigel on Friday, July 20, 2007

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

TERROR

We live in tumultuous times. I had just finished watching some late night back editions of Spooks, one of my favourite programmes when it all started to kick off for real. As I write this earlier in the week, I recognise that we have all been very lucky. A friend of mine at Westminster’s daughter was in the Tiger club celebrating her 18th birthday. It could all have ended so differently.

This is not going to go away. Throughout history there have always been seen lunatics prepared to pervert religion and other ideologies for violent means. Given modern technology and communications, the ease of travel and access to cheap explosives this is unlikely to diminish. There seems to be a never-ending supply of radicals prepared to sacrifice themselves to destroy our way of life. We have no choice but to face them head on and defend our values to the hilt. It is not about foreign policy. We should not apologise, there is no justification for this at all.
For most of us this simply means getting on with our lives but being vigilant and reporting suspicious circumstances to the police.

But there are policy changes we need to consider in government, both to buttress our defences and also to create a society where tensions are as low as possible. I was not previously persuaded that our security forces need to have longer than the 28 days to detain people before charging them, but we should be willing to look again at the evidence on this. If they can make a case for longer we will have to give it, with all appropriate safeguards. We have to increase the level of dialogue and integration with the Muslim community, recognising that the vast majority do not support or condone terrorism. But they must say so more loudly and clearly.

I have travelled to several Muslim countries in recent times and their biggest fear is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. There really are training camps in Pakistan/Afghanistan where young men are taken to be radicalised and trained, to come back to create havoc. We have to be more robust with the countries who tacitly allow this to happen. We have to get these training camps closed down.

Please don’t think that this is just a big city problem. Anywhere people gather could be a target. Keep vigilant and keep safe, but let them not intimidate us.

posted by Nigel on Friday, July 20, 2007

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

ENGLISH HERITAGE

If you are a member of English Heritage may I suggest that you write a rude letter to them today and cancel your subscription? Whether you do or you don’t, if you live within the boundaries of Plymouth your council tax is set to go up to pay for the barmy, ridiculous decision they have just made to designate the civic centre in Plymouth as a listed building.
I spoke to the council’s chief executive the day after the news was received. He reckoned it would cost the city between £10 and £20 million, money we simply do not have.

English Heritage exists to “protect and promote England's spectacular historic environment” and ensure that its past is researched and understood. We can all understand that Stonehenge is of great historic interest and you would not want to see it bulldozed to make way for a multi-storey car park, but the Plymouth civic centre? Spectacular historic environment? Do me a favour. It is one of the ugliest buildings on the local skyline, the offices it contains are dismal and inefficient and it suffers from all kinds of structural problems. It was designed and built at a time when British architecture was at a low ebb and the sooner it can be blown up the better. What’s more, the council have just signed anew deal with a major developer to completely reshape this disappointing monument in the heart of our city.

None of that matters to the pointy-heads who staff the upper echelons of English Heritage. I hope the half a dozen local people who asked for this to happen will make themselves known to us all so we know who to blame for future council tax hikes.

I live in a grade I listed house. It was built during the Tudor period and contains many fascinating historic features. I am glad it is protected. I hope it will still be standing in a thousand years. But there is a world of difference between a 500 year old house and a 50 year old wreck of an office block.

The real problem is that English Heritage and many quangos like them have power without responsibility. Will they have to find the funding that flows from their irresponsible decision? Of course not. They will sit in their air-conditioned modern offices and spend the day choosing another victim. The sooner this agency is abolished the better.

posted by Nigel on Monday, July 02, 2007

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

A38

I make no apologies for returning to the safety of the A38. I recognise that you can never design out tragic human error, but the recent disaster that has taken 3 local lives has only heightened my fear that we have a motorway speed race track running through the heart of our community, the Devon Expressway no less; but a road that falls well short of motorway standards of safety, especially the part between Marsh Mills and Ivybridge.
Why do I say that?

First, there are three “informal” junctions that are just plain dangerous at Lyneham, Cadleigh and on the Plymouth direction just after Smithaleigh. Turning into these junctions from a road where drivers are thundering along at seventy and getting out of them on tiny slip roads is dangerous. I know there may be inconvenience for some, but a major review is necessary, possibly resulting in closure. At the Cadleigh junction it is all too easy to turn right back along the wrong lane of the A38, especially on a dark rain-lashed night. The Lyneham junction is about to close for the power station works. Perhaps, it should never re-open.

Second, even some of the proper slip roads are sub-standard. My recent enquires reveal that there are regular occasions when motorists nearly drive the wrong way back up the slip road from the A38 into Lee Mill, and the access at the other end is dangerous because you cannot see the traffic on the dual carriage way until you are virtually upon it. Many times I have witnessed squealing of brakes and near misses at that spot. Both of these roads need an urgent review, not least in terms of better road signs.

Third, the Deep Lane junction, a catastrophe waiting to happen. Almost every day traffic queues on the Devon Expressway in both directions to get off at this junction. It is always a relief to see the car behind you brake rather than slam into the back of you. The Highway Agency is tinkering with it at the moment when it really needs a major overhaul. We cannot wait for Sherford to be completed for this to be done.So I have tabled Parliamentary Questions this week, alerting ministers and looking for answers. But it would help me enormously if you could let me have by post or e-mail your own observations and suggestions about how this stretch of road might be made safer.

posted by Nigel on Monday, July 02, 2007