No parking - no local shopping

This, written by me, appeared in the Herald Express today...time for action....

People won't come back to shop in town centres if they can't park – it's that simple!

YOU would have to be a modern Rip Van Winkle not to have noticed that life has changed dramatically in the past few years.

So much of what we had previously taken for granted seems to have been blow away in a sort of financial maelstrom that has left many people buffeted, battered and hugely confused.

A little while ago – well in point of fact it was actually four years ago – I delivered a number of lectures based on the concept The Tsunami of Change.

Basically, I had become increasingly worried about the gathering financial storm. That worry was not in isolation, since others had also started to become concerned about financial instability in the markets.

Of course, anyone with two thirds of a brain working would know that if the markets became unstable then the impact would hurt the most vulnerable sectors of society first.

The Tsunami of Change, in financial terms, is very much like that nasty wave. The incoming rush of water is bad enough but the real problem is when sea level is re-established. As the water rushes back to the ocean it pulls so much ugly rubbish with it and, sadly, enormous financial changes do the same, and yes you've guessed it, those most vulnerable in society suffer most.

In recent times the old story of frog cooking has a new relevance because in so many ways we have all been heated slowly and some of the changes happening leave us too apathetic to find a place of safety.

Why don't we react? Well too often it is simply the worry of change and being pushed from what we might call the comfort zone.

Most people will have heard about Roosevelt's 'All we have to fear is fear itself' comment in his first inaugural speech.


One obvious impact of the financial storm is the change in town centres. Take a walk through the centres of Paignton, Brixham and Torquay and count the number of empty shops.

Do you remember when local communities used to gather around the post office? Community disengagement is very dangerous indeed and this is a time when we all need to pull together for what we might deem to be the greater good.

Government, both national and local, has started to react and you will have been aware of the Business Improvement District initiative that has featured recently in the Herald Express. BID is shared investment between government and local business to energise town centres to try to pull people back to the town centres. It is a good and wholesome project which is captivating people and that has to be a very good thing.

But here is the rub. Why do people not come into our town centres? They always used to, so what has changed? The building of huge supermarkets around our towns, which seem now to have taken the place of Christian cathedrals and become the new cathedrals of consumerism, cleverly captivate people.

There we find an almost egalitarian approach in that the well-lit shelves offer goodies to all as families trundle from aisle to aisle. Have you attempted to visit a supermarket for a bottle of milk and leave with just that?

The nice thing about an out-of-town supermarket is, yes you've guessed it, easy free parking. Cars are welcome and in this day and age if the car is welcome then so are the people. The opposite is also true. If your family car is unwelcome then you feel unloved also.

It follows, therefore, that if nipping into the town for something means that you will have to a pay a pound-plus for parking then we tend to get a little twitchy.

Parking meters dominate the town centre which doesn't actually cause a problem. One immediate benefit of a parking meter is that the all-day parkers don't dam the possible parking spaces for shoppers.

No, it is not the parking meters that cause the problem. The problem is the parking charge. Road Tax hurts, insurance will bring tears to your eyes, fuel is at an all-time shocking high and having a car serviced can leave you sleepless for weeks.

Now add to that a parking charge every time you nip into town then it really is the final nail.

It's even more annoying when you nip into town spend your hard-earned cash on a meter charge, get home and then find you have forgotten something and have to head back into town and pay another parking charge.

For me the answer is blinding simple: Make the car as well as the person welcome. That immediately will be one of the biggest business improvement district outcomes. So how do we make them welcome?

Yes, that's right, make the first hour of parking free.

We've already got those lovely blue parking meters and all that needs to happen is a quick bit of reprogramming.

You will still need to display a ticket, but that hour is free. If you want to buy a ticket for longer then the charge would start after the first hour. How simple is that?

Now, I can already hear the curmudgeons on the attack. But stand back you harbingers of doom. Give it a chance and let's see whether folk start to gravitate back to the towns.

Coupled with the good work of BID I think that we could be on the edge of community regeneration which has to be a wonderful thing.

Torbay Council may cry 'oh no, oh no' at the thought of parking revenue dropping, but will it?

But here is another idea for you guys. How about toll gates on the approach to out of town supermarkets? Simple lever arm and bucket activation as a pound is thrown in. Now that has to be a winner, but of course will never happen.

Working on the harbour, I'm outside the Paignton BID, but the problems are the same. Harbour Sports shops are also located in Exeter and on Plymouth's historic Barbican and guess what? Yes, that's right. With one hand we are saying 'come and see us' and with the other we are saying 'but we'll sting you for parking'.

It's time for a little action, boys and girls. Time also I suspect for a little joined-up thinking rather that endless disparate initiatives and biblical visions.

Amen.

LONELINESS

I must admit that I did raise an eyebrow when reading the ‘Loneliness hidden killer for OAPs” headline today. The reason that it caught my attention was the memory standing, unsuccessfully, as a local councillor five years ago.

Treading the streets and knocking on doors was quite a humbling experience in so many ways. Of course I was already aware of the financial disaster looming just over the horizon and walking the ward made me realise how isolated so many people had become. Social disengagement is a dangerous thing.

There was a time when folk paused to chat with neighbours, looking out of the window, walking down to the local Post Office and allowing the local community to engage.

But things change and now a huge amount of time is spent flicking through endless TV channels, surfing the voyeuristic internet or playing explosive virtual reality games. All this has us facing away from the window and as likely to send a neighbour an email rather than knocking on the door.

What I also noticed was the number of folk living alone listening to every heart beat and the sound of silence. One elderly lady that answered the door said that she had not spoken to anyone for over a week. We chatted for a while.

So there you have it. Fight against isolation and find the time to chat with neighbours, seek out the lonely and hold out a helping hand.

It’s not much to ask.

Education........

South Devon College with the new University Centre

When I had just left school someone asked me what I thought of the statement ‘Education is what is left after you have forgotten what you had learnt’ and to be quite honest at the time I didn’t really think about it at all. I now know that the quotation came from Einstein and oddly enough after all these years it still troubles me.

This month I have a French girl working at Harbour Sports as a business intern and today I took her to South Devon College for a quick tour. Amelie was impressed with what she found, stunned by the view of The Street from the third floor and enjoyed meeting Pat Denham (South Devon College Deputy CEO). We also had a little trip around the new University Centre, which is where I work on a part time basis as a lecturer and business innovation mentor.

I love South Devon College and think that what has happened there is quite amazing in building a community that has become exclusive by being inclusive. Now that may sound a little odd, so let me explain. I have always worried about the huge number of young people who become disenfranchised and marginalised during their school years. Their identity, the way they feel about themselves, may well build a life that becomes hardened by that feeling of marginalisation. You have only to walk around the campus to see how this community pulls together and offers a shared and meaningful experience to all.

So what about all that learning? How do we use that knowledge in a world that is increasingly dysfunctional? What do we do with the skills gathered? Well it is perhaps upon that very platform we build the future. A platform that is indeed the essence of what is left when learning merges into everyday life. After all is said and done learning is so much more than lessons and lectures. It is about the totality of that experience.

Hmm, a shared experience in a caring environment. Is it really that difficult?

The Big Society?

Of course the post-Christmas period can be something of an anticlimax, especially if like me you find Christmas a magical time. But it is more than that. After digesting huge amounts of political rhetoric over the past six months I am attempting to understand what is really being said.

The odd thing is that the numerous U-turns, mind changes, broken promises and a myriad of other devices simply confuse us all. Poor old Vince Cable seems to be bouncing around all over the place, which is a shame because he is actually a clever man with, I thought, his feet on the ground. At the moment he appears to be in training to the British 2012 Olympic Gymnastics team, with the finest series of political flick flacks that I have seen for a very long time.

Watching the New Trinity of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg makes me shiver. Did you see the Captain SKA You Tube video clip? Worth a watch and I have added the link at the bottom of this rant. The thing is I didn’t vote for a coalition government and it upset me when Clegg jumped into bed with Cameron. Parliament, in my opinion, works best without a huge bundle of lemming politicians rushing in different directions when the pack leader coughs.

It was pleasing to see Torbay MP Adrian Sanders making a stand the other day and attempting to demonstrate that not all Liberal Democrats fly a flag of political convenience! Sometimes you have to stand up for what is right rather then being swooned by the offer of a ministerial chauffer driven car.

What 2011 holds really is in the proverbial lap of the gods since we are living though uncharted times and being buffeted by an international fiscal storm. If we are to get through these troubled times then we really must pull together and share the wealth. It seems to me that the evidence is stacked against that in this present political landscape and the worry is that the social disorder demonstrated by students recently will start to spread as more and more people become marginalised and disengaged.

So, let your life be lived for the good of all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFwxw57NBI

The mythical cucumber......

The next government spokesman to say that student loans are interest free I will beat around the head with a mythical cucumber! That a student loan is interest free is simply not true. Interest is applied to the loan from the START of the FIRST term and continues to build as the undergraduate years go by.

Being told that you have to pay nothing back until you earn over £21,000 is again misleading because if your first job pays below that then the student loan balloon continues to expand like volcanic magma as the interest builds.

But it’s not just about student loans. Students are mercilessly encouraged to use sizable bank loans and credit cards as a route to get even deeper in debt. Therefore by the time they graduate the debt is really enormous and super heating if graduation includes huge card debt. With the new fee structure it will be possible to have a graduation debt of anywhere between £30000 and £50000. That is serious debt.

Do you know that higher education can seriously damage your financial health?

Think about this, a young graduate couple could be starting life together with a debt of perhaps £100,000, which really is shocking. £100,000 – that really is unbelievable. Welcome to the future boys and girls!

I’ve been banging on about this stuff since 1999 when the first horde of undergraduate lemmings hurtled toward what they thought was the bright new future under mega star Tony Blair. Sadly David Cameron is now ‘compounding’ it and Vince Cable seems to have done a complete U turn with the energy of an Olympic gymnast.

My generation, sadly, has done a very good job of spending our children’s future whilst at the same time crippling the international financial structure.

Welcome to bedlam.

Tall Ships and Warm Winds

A warm wind is blowing today across Torbay and my mind is filled with feelings of freedom. Years ago I always knew when this sort of wind arrived it was time for me to be on the move. It is the wind that moves a tall ship across the miles of ocean, large sails filled and the sea rushing past. There is nothing else that comes close to the emotion that sends a shiver through every part of me.

We live in complicated times where so much is changing and sadly not for the better. The thing about working on a tall ship is that everyone has to pull together for a common purpose. Yet today too many people don't pull for the greater good and simply take without giving.

My theme for 2010 has been about pulling together but to do that you really have to question your own life. In the words of folk singer Tom Paxton "My own life is all I can hope to control and so my life be lived for the good of my soul."

It's a start.

Macro and Micro - we're all splashing about!

This little effort by me was published in The Herald Express (South Devon) today...They say that money doesn’t make you happy and that may well be true. But what is also very true is the fact that not having enough money to make ends meet can make you unhappy. Very unhappy indeed! Now, I’m not talking about whether you have enough cash to take an annual holiday or to buy another fun toy. I’m talking about the very basic stuff of life, simply having a place to feel safe, to feel warm and enough food to keep you and your loved ones going. The sort of stuff that holds a family and indeed a community together
The “not having enough money syndrome” in Torbay is having a bigger and bigger impact on a daily basis. Of course you may, after reading the Herald Express and listening to local radio regularly, say that is obviously true. If you are the one with not enough money to gather the most basic things together then you will know only too well that it is true. The difference now is that the number of people having sleepless nights and early morning panic attacks about the future is steadily growing and perhaps you are one of them. You see, that “not having enough money “ to make ends meet is impacting on a bigger and bigger slice of the local population. For example you may have recently retired and looked at what your ‘pension pot’ has produced and wonder where all those contributions went. That of course is a rhetorical question that you may want to ask the bankers, the hedge fund managers, the myriad of financial advisers and other fiscal predators. Or perhaps you are a recent graduate clutching many thousands of pounds of student debt, a huge bank loan, punishing credit card balances and no meaningful job prospect– or indeed simply no job at all, especially in Torbay!
My life, so far, has always been an adventure in one way or another. Having started out as a teacher, thirty or so years ago I jumped ship and founded Harbour Sports with my brother-in-law Julian Smith back in 1978. Over that time I’ve watched Torbay go from being an exciting and vibrant community to the curious place that it is now, a sort of topsy-turvy confused collection of folk that increasingly resemble something out of Alice in Wonderland. Of course in these troubled times this perhaps is nothing more than a reflection of what is happening in the wider world. Or is it? It’s not just the physical structure of the place that has changed, it is also the very nature of the community. Hmm, community, now there really is a very interesting concept. I believe so very much in the power of the community, the sharing of experience and the support for each other. You see, without that bond we become a very lonely crowd indeed.
There are changes within Torbay, and of course the wider world, that can be both subtle and shocking. “Subtle and shocking” , what on earth is he talking about? Let’s do the shocking first. In addition to my daily activity at Harbour Sports I also work as a lecturer at South Devon College. One little project that I had a hand in was something for Foundation degree students called Enterprise Exchange. Getting a degree is one thing, making it work in a wider context is quite something else as all too many recent graduates have discovered. My theme for this activity was something that I call the ‘Tsunami of Change’ where disruption in society is so sudden it is very much like a very large tidal wave. This wall of water is hugely damaging on the way in and even more catastrophic on the way out as all sorts of junk washes back to the ocean. That is exactly what has happened and is happening in the financial markets! Being hit by the economic knee-jerk reaction is one thing but then to face the socially damaging dumping of jobs is an evil fiscal tool; and that is what is happening now. The impact on the individual of job loss is emotionally hurtful, on the family debilitating and in the community it causes division.
I think that it was Dr Albert Schweitzer, the founder of the leper hospital village in Africa, who said “The tragedy of life is what dies inside of a man while he still lives.” That has always worried me, and these days I am beginning to see the creeping evidence of that very thing in our society. So what have I noticed?
Well, the shocking changes above in the wider economy tend to grab the headlines and why wouldn’t they? But there are the more subtle social changes that tend to creep up on us. It’s a bit like water dripping on limestone. At first you don’t really notice but as time passes you end up with something the size of Kent’s Cavern!
The first thing is the difference between rhetoric and reality. For example take a look at the change between Gallows Gate and Tweenaway Cross. In the not too distant past there were a number of large holiday camps dotted along the ring road, but today they’ve gone and have been replaced by housing estates. First one went, then another and then all of them. Of course things change and that is the nature of progress, however the nature of that adjustment to change can be a matter of choice. Surely there are things that we can quietly accept and other where we really do need to take action.
As I’ve said, for me much of the past thirty years have been spent working on Paignton’s lovely little harbour. At the time when the Mayor’s Vision for the harbour suddenly popped up I did go into print pointing out that this was a living community rather than an abstract plot for development. Whilst on the topic of visions the question has to be asked whether Nick Bye is a Man of Vision or a man having visions. If it is the latter then it may be a medical condition that requires the help of a doctor or a skilled psychotherapist with an interest in the nature of night time’s dreams. If it is the former then we must have the checks and balances before the colouring book becomes a reality with unforeseen consequences.
Paignton harbour has a rich and colourful history dotted with charismatic characters such as Peter Pannel, Joe Lane and Captain Ron Richards. It has until quite recently been a community of folk woven together by a love of the sea, but we live in curious times and small changes can have quite a big impact. Take as an example the closing of the Post Office not too long ago. This was a community hub, a daily contact point for many and a source of local awareness. When Monica died alone in her flat it was the guy in the Post Office who went immediately to check on her because she had not dropped in for her stamps which, as a letter writer, she did each day. Harbour Sports were able to post parcels rather than do what we do now which is to send a man in a van half way across the town leaving a large carbon footprint.
Furthermore there are other worrying changes around the harbour like the sudden proliferation of prohibition notices, including one in the middle of a little memorial garden, which has angered the North Quay boatmen. The Vision shows a redevelopment of this harbour as a hub for folk that I don’t recognise at all from the artists impressions which show smartly dressed athletic people striding on the east quay (it is worth pointing out that the east quay in winter often ships green waves over the harbour wall) and I wonder where the locals have been relocated!
Now here’s the thing. Most importantly what must happen if you want to captivate a local population is that people have to believe. Occasional success is the catalyst and that too often is not recognised. For example recently Paignton Community and Sports College received ‘outstanding’ from OFSTED inspectors. There should have been dancing in the streets because this is a COMMUNITY school! Young people work through community awards and dozens achieve Bronze, Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards. The latter requires that they not only work for themselves but also have to work for the community. This sort of thing is socially cohesive and it washes through the community.
Ultimately it is all about community and unless we pull together, stop and pick the paper from the floor, help a neighbour without seeking reward then the future is bleak. These are hard times, very hard times, but that is no excuse for walking around with a face like a slapped kipper. Let’s start by supporting each other, use local amenities like the Riviera Centre as a community hub, swim in the sea, paddle a kayak, walk the coastal path, support local business and keep in good order the living fabric of Torbay. Now there’s a Vision!