John's Blog

Well, it would seem that Ledbury is again to be attacked by a massive supermarket chain in the form of Sainsbury’s.

The day Tesco’s application to build a new superstore on the Ledbury Welding site was withdrawn, Sainsbury’s application to build next door to that site, on the current Galebreaker site, went in.

For background information on the Sainsbury’s plan it’s worth going to their Ledbury specific website. The gist of it it that they want to build something ever so slightly smaller than Tesco had planned, but with a filling station too.

So, will it be approved?

Well, that to me seems unlikely but you can never tell. The main reason I believe it is unlikely is for the same reasons that Tesco’s proposal would have been rejected if it had been considered by Herefordshire Council (the application was withdrawn the day before it came before the planning committee).

The report by Herefordshire’s Principal Planning Officer, Roland Close, on the Tesco application is available here. It’s a very interesting document and well worth reading through.

Tesco made some fairly obvious schoolboy mistakes, it would appear, that affected how well received their proposal was but ultimately there are three main issues that led to Mr Close’s recommendation for rejection of the application:

1. The size was not appropriate for Ledbury given the population, even taking into account the likely increase over the next 15 years when 800 new houses are built, and taking into account improvements in retail provision elsewhere in the county (especially the Cattle Market development in Hereford)
2. The location was not appropriate; it could be seen as a destination in its own right which would more than likely adversely affect the viability and vitality of Ledbury town centre. This would be a big deal; Ledbury has many historic premises in town and the effect of this could lead to a reduction in the finances available to maintain those premises leading to possible deterioration of their structure.
3. Tesco had been rather lax in the presentation of the “Sequential Assessment” in which they are required to describe their selection of site and justify reasons why they can’t build in town and at the edge of town. Mr Close has, in my opinion quite rightly, stated that Tesco’s have failed to fully address the possible redevelopment of their current site in Orchard Lane and has provided an outline plan that, if it were put in place (and approved) would lead to a more appropriate and sustainable sized store on that site.

So what is different with Sainsbury’s plan?

At the time of writing the detailed plan is not available on the UK Planning Portal as it has not been accepted yet but, based on their outline plans and PR exercise it seems that very little is different.

Sainsbury’s clearly have no existing edge-of-town store to consider redeveloping but Mr Close, in his report, identified another possible site that Tesco could have considered in their plans but failed to address fully. It will be interesting to see if, and how, Sainsbury’s have addressed that. The site in question is currently a car park (by the swimming pool) but for a reasonable sized store it would be necessary for Sainsbury’s to buy up a number of nearby buildings and merge them all in to one.

Other than that the plans appear to be quite similar which means two of the major issues that could have been expected to cause Tesco’s plan to be rejected (size and location) remain appropriate to the Sainsbury’s proposal. In fact, the size issue is even more appropriate to their proposal since, in Tesco’s case, the Orchard Lane store would have closed. In effect the Tesco plan would have resulted in a net increase of 2000sqm of retail space whereas the new Sainsbury’s would result in an additional 2787sqm! Almost 40% more than Tesco.

There are a number of other issues that Mr Close’s report addresses, including the use of land the other side of the viaduct (where Galebreaker plan to move to), but it’s definitely worth reading to understand the justification for recommending rejection and it’s difficult to argue as to why that should be any different for Sainsbury’s.

But surely Ledbury needs a bigger store?

Does it? This is an interesting question.

There’s a campaign on Facebook supporting the Sainsbury’s plans because some people do think that; in fact, they have their own ‘LESS’ website which is fairly analogous to the website of the group dedicated to campaigning against out of town superstores.

However it should also be mentioned that a number of those objecting to an out of town superstore believe Ledbury could sustain something bigger than what we already have. The difference is that these people believe it should be in a location, and of a size, that is appropriate to the size and population of Ledbury, and which remains complementary to Ledbury’s town centre. It is clear from Mr Close’s report that Tesco’s plan certainly does not fit that bill, and Sainsbury’s plan seems so similar to Tesco’s that it’s difficult to see why that would be any differen.

I’d like to address a couple of claims made by the Ledbury Supports Sainsbury’s group.

Ledbury’s Population Has Increased By 3100 in Two Years

On the 12th October 2011 at 16:09 a comment was made (item 25) on the Ledbury Portal stating:

Even the report that Herefordshire County council says Ledbury only requires another approx 1,000 sqm of retail space fails to recognise the increase in population since the 2009 count (2009 – Population 9,900, 2011 – Population 13,031) if that trend continues then in the next 2 years Ledburys population will be at ~16,000 so by 2015 Ledbury ALONE will have a population of ~19,000 people, that does not include the growth throughout the HR8 district.

It has been shown in the rest of that thread that the claim is spurious and nonsense. The 9,900 is based on Herefordshire Council figures but the 13,031 comes from potential newspaper circulation figures based on the population over 15yrs old in Ledbury and the surrounding area. So a comparison of apples and oranges it would appear.

In fact, if you do look closely at the Herefordshire Council figures you can see that there’s been a slow, but steady, decline in Ledbury’s population since mid-2007 so not the population explosion the LESS representative group would suggest!

Ledbury Is The Fastest Growing Town In Herefordshire

There is a common argument that Ledbury’s growing and continues to do so faster than any other Herefordshire town. The source of this is Table 5 in a report from Herefordshire Council which shows Ledbury’s population increase between the 2001 Census and the mid-2009 estimate being 7%. The figures provided here though (the same spreadsheet as in the previous section) show that the growth peaked in 2007 and since then has, to some extent, reversed (approximately a 1% decline in the 3 years to mid-2010).

Ledbury’s Population Will Increase by 3000+ In The Next Two Decades

This is based on the approved plans for 800 new homes to be built in Ledbury between now and 2026, at a rate of around 40-50 homes a year. So, by 2026 there will be 800 new households in Ledbury. At a claimed 3000+ total that means the average household size in the new homes, assuming the household size remains the same in the rest of Ledbury, will be 3.75. An interesting claim, especially given that this government report forecasts that the average household size in the UK will fall to 2.16 by 2026. Even ignoring the possible reduction in the rest of Ledbury as a result of this it still means that the claimed 3000+ is more likely to be a little over half that figure (1728).

Ledbury Has Survived Intrusion From Supermarkets Already

This claim has been made a number of times in a number of forums. Yes, Ledbury continues to thrive despite Tesco and Co-Op building in the town (or at the edge of the town). It’s fairly clear to me why this is; neither of those stores dwarf the town and its population, and they never have. They’ve been aligned to the needs of Ledbury and their location encourages people to use both themselves and the town centre allowing the town centre shops to be complementary and to compete. The proposed plans are for stores three times the size of the current Tesco store and is aimed to attract custom from the other supermarkets in the area. Neither is aimed at just addressing the needs of Ledbury; they both want to attract shoppers away from Morrison’s in Ross-On-Wye and Malvern, and Waitrose.

Why Would People Come From Malvern To Shop?

This question is asked when it’s pointed out that additional traffic, from the Malvern/Worcester direction, is likely to come through town if a superstore is built. It’s commonly pointed out that Malvern already has numerous supermarkets including Morrisons, Waitrose, Lidl, Co-Op, Iceland etc so some people don’t see why shoppers should choose to go to a Tesco or Sainsbury’s superstore instead of what they have locally.

I believe there’s a good reason why they would; preference. It’s clear that not all supermarkets are created equal. There is a preference hierarchy where a trade-off between perceived cost and perceived quality (both of goods and the “shopping experience”) is made. If we look at only the big 4 (Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda) there is, as far as I can tell, the perception that Sainsbury’s and Tesco are superior to Morrisons and Asda, with Sainsbury’s a slightly higher than Tesco. A little above the big four is Waitrose; perceived as good quality but relatively expensive.

So I believe there are people who would choose to shop at either Sainsbury’s or Tesco in Ledbury in preference to Morrisons or Waitrose in Malvern.

Isn’t Additional Traffic Through Town Going To Benefit Town Traders?

That’s difficult to say and nowhere near as clear cut as it may seem. To some extent, if parking is convenient and it’s perceived as safe for pedestrians to wander around, then it could be seen as an advantage. Unfortunately though there comes a point where there is too much traffic (and too little parking space) and pedestrians find it difficult getting around. I personally believe Ledbury’s already not far off that point at its worst; additional traffic through town could tip the balance.

Sainsbury’s Will Create 220 Jobs

In fact Sainsbury’s claim “up to 220 new full and part-time jobs”. Sainsbury’s are, quite rightly from a PR point of view, announcing the maximum number of jobs that will be created but there are a number of issues with this.

• They’re not likely to all be full-time jobs. While this is potentially good news for people who don’t want full-time jobs or can’t manage full-time work due to other commitments, you have to balance that against the potential for job losses that may occur in other local retailers and suppliers. While jobs are important, there is plenty of evidence including a report commissioned by the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland that suggests an out of town superstore will not have a net beneficial effect on employment in the area due to losses from other retailers and their suppliers. No one can say this is definitely going to happen in Ledbury, but it’s certainly a major risk.
• There is evidence that the number of jobs advertised by large superstores prior to construction/opening are not made available once the store is opened. A particular example is Tesco in Accrington where Tesco claimed to be creating 450 new jobs and only took on 191 people. There is also evidence on a larger scale that the number Sainsbury’s (in particular) claim to be creating many new jobs yet employee numbers fell between 2009 and 2010.
• Tesco’s figures for an equivalent sized store were 200 full and part-time jobs based on 125 existing jobs and 75 new jobs. Given that Tesco’s application was recommended for rejection based on their overestimation of the sustainability of the new store, it would seem that, if Sainsbury’s were to be approved, we surely must expect job losses at either Tesco or Co-Op in addition to those potentially lost from independent traders and their suppliers. In the worst case, if Tesco decided to pull out of Ledbury, that’s 125 jobs lost straight away; a significant proportion of Sainsbury’s “up to 220″ jobs.

The gist of it is that it’s unreasonable to expect all the publicised jobs to be created, and we must expect jobs to be lost elsewhere.

We Can’t Get Everything We Need In Ledbury

I would question the use of “need” in that statement but there are some essentials, in particular the provision of cheap children’s clothing, that Ledbury is devoid of. This could be addressed in a number of ways including someone taking the initiative of opening a shop in town to sell cheap children’s clothes. Unfortunately I’m aware of one person at least who has considered this and found the rental of in-town shop units to be prohibitively expensive for that kind of retail.

A possibly better solution would be for Tesco to sell part of their range and this could easily be done if Tesco were to proceed down the route suggested by Mr Close in his report and re-developing their current site.

Sainsbury’s Are Providing A Cheap Petrol Station

What Sainsbury’s actually state is:

A new petrol station is included as part of the proposal. Sainsbury’s reviews its petrol and diesel prices regularly to ensure it always provides customers with great value and is competitive locally.

The point to note here is “competitive locally”. That doesn’t mean the petrol will be as cheap as, say, Sainsbury’s in Cheltenham where fuel seems particularly cheap. There is evidence (although I can’t find a link at the moment) that the supermarkets price their fuel at a level they think the local people will pay. Quite often you will find that supermarkets are only slightly cheaper, if cheaper at all, than the other local fuel stations. As far as “competitive locally” goes, I suspect that means they will look at the price of fuel at the Jet station in the Homend and at the Q8 station in Parkway and set their prices based on those and little else. I believe that, while they may end up selling “cheaply”, this will only be on a local scale.

I also have some concern that, in doing so, they will price the Parkway filling station out of business leading to inconvenience to the residents of Parkway who’ve only recently had any sort of fuel station/convenience store made available to them.

There Will Be More Choice

In the short term, yes, there will. In the long term that remains to be seen as it’s possible, if local independent traders go to the wall, there will be no choice other than to shop at Sainsbury’s.

The other thing to remember is that a store designed to service 25,000 people will have to be bigger than a store designed to service 12,000 simply due to the fact that they will need to have higher stock levels of each item.

It seems obvious to me that a store designed to an appropriate size for the population of Ledbury would not need anywhere near the amount of shelf space that is required for a store designed to support e.g. Hereford, even if it were to stock an equivalent range of goods, and therefore need not be anywhere near as big. This is simply because the stock levels required for Ledbury would not match those needed for Hereford.

So what happens next?

Clearly I believe the current Sainsbury’s plan is not appropriate for Ledbury so I think it should be rejected. I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that, now that Tesco have withdrawn their application, that is the end of things. Nor am I naive enough to believe that the Sainsbury’s plan is our only option.

I am firmly of the belief that a larger supermarket could be supported by Ledbury without significantly damaging trade in the town centre, but not one in the location that both Tesco and Sainsbury’s planned, and certainly not one of the size they have planned.

I believe that, given Mr Close’s report, the best thing that could happen is that Tesco take on-board what he has suggested and put more effort in to analysing how they can redevelop their current site to best support the community. I personally would be unlikely to object to something along those lines.

Just in case anyone hasn’t heard, Tesco are trying to relocate their Ledbury store from its currently location in Orchard Lane to the site currently used by Ledbury Welding in the Lower Road trading estate.

My view is that this is a bad move and I thought I’d write this blog to help you understand my thoughts on this. For the record it appears that the plan is to create a store that is significantly larger than the one at Belmont in Hereford (which is a pretty big shop!).

Do we need a larger store in Ledbury? I don’t think so. I’ve seen quotes on the Ledbury Reporter site where someone said that the current store “doesn’t meet our basic food needs”! I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Tesco sells bread, milk, eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables and so on. What on earth is there missing from a list of basic food needs?! Incredible.

If you think we do need a larger store, I’d be interested in knowing why you think that. Is it just because the current store doesn’t stock some of the things you want? Is it because you want more choice? Take a moment to think about what things Tesco’s current store stocks that you never buy. Do you think it’s possible that Tesco could change its range of goods to be more appropriate to our local needs? I think it would.

From my point of view I would like to see Tesco stocking cheap kids’ clothes. Ledbury has been devoid of a store like that since Woolworths closed and it would be nice to have something to replace it with. Personally I think that much of the stuff in what used to be the cafe (inside the door on the left) is pointless. Some of the Tesco branded stuff is cheap and, if you’re desparate, will do the job but are you really going to buy an iPhone from Tesco? Most of the branded stuff in that section can be bought cheaper elsewhere anyway! I just think a lot of that stuff could be abandoned and replaced with more useful things. I’m not going to go in to every single detail here but the gist of it is that I believe Tesco could change their policy on stock to better address the current failures without having to build a massive new store.

Apart from that, there are obviously other major issues involved with their relocation.

Tesco claim many advantages; more parking, more jobs, bringing more people in to Ledbury to shop.

I’ve never seen the current car park full. Close to it on occasion, such as at Christmas, but I’ve never been in the car park and failed to find a place to park.

If we have a bigger store then you’ll need more parking anyway because the plan is to attract people who would otherwise use Tesco’s competitors stores in Ross-On-Wye, Malvern and the other stores in Hereford that are closer to the Ledbury side than the Belmont Tesco. Will this bring more people to shop in Ledbury? Of course, but only to the outskirts of Ledbury and there are many issues with this to do with traffic.

As we know Ledbury doesn’t have a proper bypass; it’s got half a bypass. There is easy access to the proposed site from the Ross, Hereford and Gloucester directions. From Malvern and Worcester access is very poor; you have Knapp Lane or the A449 which narrows to traffic in one direction at a time at the top cross. It already gets badly clogged up at the top cross; do we really want to make that worse? The “close Knapp Lane to through traffic” brigade would have a head-fit as that’s really the only alternative to the Worcester Road so anyone who knows the area would probably avoid the hold-ups at the traffic lights by going along Knapp Lane in to the Homend.

Not only that, but one supposed advantage of moving from the current site is to reduce traffic past the primary school. I personally expect that many of the vehicles coming out of Knapp Lane on their way to Lower Road will go down Orchard Lane so cancelling out the advantage.

Let’s get back to the top cross and, in general, access to Lower Road from the Worcester direction. If I was coming to Lower Road from the Worcester Road my first thought would be to turn right in to the High Street, then turn left in to Bye Street, down Bridge Street and in to Lower Road then right on to the industrial estate. How many of you, who know Ledbury, would come in from Worcester/Malvern/Eastnor and turn left at the top cross to get to Lower Road (past the high school) round the bypass? I suspect, err, none of you.

At this point we can see that we have a load of people coming in from the Ross/Hereford/Gloucester directions, round the bypass in to the Tesco car park, doing their shopping and going back home the way they came. How does that benefit Ledbury? Quite simply, it doesn’t. People from that direction are unlikely to choose to come in to Ledbury town centre any more than they do now. In fact placing Tesco in that location will probably make it less likely for them to choose to go in to the town centre than they would have before because they will be able to get some of the things in Tesco that they may have got from smaller independent traders in town. We also have increased traffic from the Worcester direction that is likely to clog up the heart of Ledbury and to cause problems in a residential street (Bye Street/Bridge Street/Lower Road) where the homeowners are already forced to park on the road.

In recent months I have read there are already issues in the Lower Road estate with non-trade traffic; the local businesses have been complaining about the amount of through traffic! How is Tesco aiming to improve that? Are they doing anything to prevent people coming in the Lower Rd end of the estate rather than off the ‘bypass’? I certainly didn’t see any evidence of that at their presentation.

Now we get on to the jobs issue where Tesco are claiming this scheme will create 75 jobs and safeguard the existing ones. Now I may be wrong but won’t staying where they are safeguard the existing ones or have they got plans they’re not telling us about? As for the new ones, well, this is a cunning ploy that the big supermarkets use to try to make their plans more appealing. In fact there is evidence to suggest that the expansion of these supermarkets across the country has resulted in fewer jobs overall (article on This Is Money). Not only that but the jobs that are created tend to be low paid, typically part time (15 hours/week or less) jobs that minimise Tesco’s responsibilities to their staff and to the government in terms of taxes, national insurance and overtime payments (article in The English Rag).

When you look at the bigger picture though we can see that you have an out of town Tesco attracting people to it instead of to the town centre. That’s going to badly affect town centre trade. Couple that with the increased traffic in the town centre which will also put people off going there and you increase the negative impact on local shops so how many jobs in town are likely to be lost as a result? A loss of only 30 jobs in town already offsets the 75 part time jobs that Tesco are likely to create. Looking even wider though it’s well known that, for companies like Tesco, maintenance, repairs, reworking of layout etc is handled by contractors who are arranged at a corporate level. In contrast the small independent traders tend to hire local workers to do that sort of thing so we’re looking at possible indirect job losses from the support industries that are used by local stores.

In the end we could end up with a town centre that’s pretty much devoid of shops; just mostly boarded up and unused premises such as those we can already see on the Southend (the old bike and tattoo shops).

I can’t think of anyone who would choose to live in a ghost town like that, but I’m convinced that Ledbury is likely to head that way if Tesco’s scheme is approved.

One final thought; a number of people complain about having to go out of town to get some of their shopping. Is it really such a bad thing to leave the town you live in on occasion! I like to get out and see something different now and again!

From the Highway Code:

226

You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves (see Rule 236).
[Law RVLR regs 25 & 27]

236
You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves.
[Law RVLR regs 25 & 27]

As the years go on I find myself getting more and more disturbed by how few people there are on the roads who understand the use of fog lights, and more and more narked by the idiots who clearly don’t bother to read the Highway Code where it tells you the rules (see above) on their use. If you’re not au fait with the Highway Code then you may not know that, where MUST or MUST NOT is specified then the rule is based on statute and a reference to it is supplied at the end of the paragraph. Both of the rules above are of that type, so I’ve provided links to the relevant acts of parliament that provide the legal definition. As such, these rules are more than just guidelines that can be used to support a prosecution, they are rules that, if broken, can result directly in prosecution (normally a fine).

Unfortunately though the number of prosecutions that occur based on those laws are minimal and, in my opinion, should be much higher.

The other day I travelled around 100 miles in fairly misty conditions down mainly motorways. Now, on motorways, it is extremely easy to work out whether you can see 100m or more; not only are there little markers by the side of the motorway set at 100m intervals (the little white posts with blue and red bits on them), but the countdown markers at the approach to junctions are 100m ahead.

At no point during the time I was on the motoway that day was the visibility reduced to less than about 400m, yet the number of people using fog lights was massive! Not only that, much of the journey was lit by streetlights which helps to improve the long distance visibility in conditions like those.

What amazes me the most is the lack of brain use that seems to happen when these people are driving. I always thought that it was quite important to put your brain in to gear as well as your car, but I think I must be in a minority. Why would anyone possibly imagine, as they’re driving along in a queue of traffic x metres behind a car without fog lights on (and they can see it perfectly clearly), that the driver following x metres behind them is incapable of seeing them without their fog lights being on! It absolutely defines logic.

Then you’ve got the people who suddenly decide that it’s so foggy they need to put their fog lights on despite the fact they’ve been being followed fairly closely for some distance! Do they think the driver behind will somehow think they’ll have disappeared all of a sudden?

Interestingly the AA publishes a book that provides a list of hundreds of driving test theory questions. Question numbers 690 through to 710 cover the use of fog lights, and nearly all of them have answers that reinforce the fact that using your fog lights inappropriately is dangerous as it can dazzle following drivers and can cause confusion due to masking your brake lights.

So, if you are someone who likes to use fog lights, please switch your brain on before you go out and, while you’re driving think about the following points:

1. If you’re on a motorway and the visibility is reduced, check the distance markers at the side of the motorway. If you reach one and can see the next one then visibility is NOT less than 100m so you should not be using fog lights.
2. Try to remember how far 100m is so that, when you haven’t got the motorway markers to help you, you can still roughly estimate whether visibility is less than 100m or not.
3. On any road, if you can clearly see the headlights of the vehicle behind you in your mirror then, unless they’ve just appeared, it’s highly likely they know you’re there so you probably don’t need to switch on your fog lights (or, if you already have them on, you can switch them off in order to avoid dazzling the driver)
4. If you can clearly see the tail lights of the car in front of you even without that vehicle having fog lights on then, if there’s a vehicle around the same distance behind you, they probably know you’re there and can see you without your fog lights on so don’t switch them on (or switch them off if you’ve already got them on)
5. If the road is empty as far as you can see behind you then, if visibility is less than 100m, feel free to switch your fog lights on. However remember that they’re on and that you need to switch them off if the situation changes (i.e. if visibility improves or if there’s a vehicle fairly close behind you)
6. If someone behind you is flashing their headlights then it may be because your fog lights are dazzling them. If they’re on, switch them off and see if their flashing stops
7. Don’t automatically switch your fog lights on just because it gets a little bit more foggy, or because a roadside sign says “Fog”; think about all of the above first – it may not be appropriate to use fog lights at that time

One final question you should ask yourself, and this is aimed mostly at BMW drivers as they seem to be the worst culprits in my experience, is “if I think visibility is bad enough to warrant switching my fog lights on, should I really be travelling 10m from the car in front of me at 90mph?”.

When I was about 10 I had a number of friends at a different school and many of them were members of the Boys’ Brigade. One day one of my best friends, Andy Macleod, persuaded me to come along to the band practice where a bunch of people got together to play drums and bugles and march around the place. I loved it. They were a really good group of people and it was good fun. After I turned up a few times it was suggested to me that, really, if I wanted to keep coming, I ought to actually join the Boys Brigade.

There was one issue though; the church. The Boys Brigade, certainly in Scotland, despite being advertised as a “Christian” organisation is actually seen as a Protestant organisation and this was a bit of a concern to my Roman Catholic parents. I was really keen to join and didn’t really see this as an issue but it took a little while and some persuading from the then captain Bob Goodall, for my parents to let me join. In the end though they gave in and I became one of only three Catholics in the company. Ironically I was actually too young by about a month to join the Company section, but they let me in anyway.

Over the next four or five years I made a load of friends through the BB and had some great times, especially at summer camps and with the band, which turned out to be one of the best marching bands in Scotland). We had some brilliant trips to Stafford for the BB National Marching Band competition. As well as those sort of activities I played in the table tennis and football teams, and took part in numerous other competitions in the battalion.

Eventually though you either go on to become an officer or end up leaving. I ended up leaving.

There have been times I’ve thought about going back to help out but having daughters instead of sons is a slight issue. The main issue though is that the BB still retains its strong links to Christianity. As a non-believer that’s a real problem; how can you encourage Christian beliefs and so on if you don’t believe yourself? I’m sure there are some people who could do this, but I’m not one of them.

I think this issue is also part of the reason why, if you look at the published information on the BB and Boy Scouts websites, the BB claims to have around 1 million members worldwide whereas the Scout organisation claims to have 28 million. In the UK the BB is 65,000 strong compared to around 400,000 in the Scout movement. My perception of the Scouts has always been that they seem less tied to the church and therefore more open to non-christians.

Perhaps it’s time that the Boys Brigade followed down that route. Ultimately the main principles that are encouraged in the BB, Obedience, Reverence, Discipline and Self-Respect, have nothing whatsoever to do with religion, they’re just plain and simple morals that should be widely encouraged irrespective of what religion you are. Other than the church issue, I didn’t see a huge difference between the organisations; the Scouts appeared to be a bit less disciplined in my experience, and didn’t seem to spend so much time on non-physical activities but other than that they seemed to do much the same thing.

Back then the BB was a brilliant organisation but I think it needs to become more modern and multicultural if it’s going to survive and expand over the next few years.

Well there has been a lot of talk about possible increases in university tuition fees recently, with the newly elected (!) coalition government considering lifting the cap on the charges that universities are allowed to make.

As someone who went through university in Scotland when there the tuition fees were covered by the government for domestic students I thought I’d publish some of my thoughts on the matter.

Clearly we have a problem in the UK with sustaining the current level of ’studentship’ in the country. When I was at university there were probably about 15-20% of school-leavers who went to university whereas now it’s reckoned to be somewhere around 45%. So why are there so many more university students?

Well you have to go back quite some time to see how things have changed.

Back in the 80s there was a distinction between universities and other establishments like the colleges of technology and the polytechnics. The mechanisms for funding were different and they were effectively managed in a different way. In 1992, under the Further and Higher Education Act, all that changed. The polytechnics and colleges of technology became universities and the whole system or funding an administration was adjusted. This also affected colleges of further education.

In 1997, under the Labour government, students started to be required to make a contribution towards their tuition fees. Since 1962 under the Conservative government, until that point, local education authorities had been required to fund the tuition fees for university students. That requirement had meant that, irrespective of your family background or wealth, you could still go to university. It was a massive investment in education and in the country’s future.

Unfortunately, since the late 90s, there have been other changes and it seems to me that there is now a need for school leavers to go on to university or be treated as a failure. This has been encouraged by successive governments who have unemployment figures to worry about; clearly by increasing student numbers you can reduce unemployment figures and make the country look as if it’s doing better.

It appears that these policies have now hit a critical point where it just can’t be sustained.

Furthermore I believe that this expansion of university education has come by a dumbing down of university education. I don’t want to appear elitist, arrogant or anything like that, but it concerns me that you can now get degrees in a large number of subjects that were previously considered as more vocational, or perhaps would be learnt about under apprenticeships schemes. A particularly interesting point about those sort of qualifications though is that very often those qualifications would be gained by attending colleges of further education part-time while working for an employer who paid the fees for that training.

There are many, many jobs that you need to be educated to do, but not necessarily by gaining a degree. One example is nursing; I know a great many nurses who have gone through training and come out with e.g. a diploma and who are very good nurses yet it seems now that the rules have changed and you need a degree. Why? Does this devalue the ability of those nurses who do not have degrees? Is that a good thing? I don’t really think so. The way nursing works you’re expected to carry out regular professional development so why would you need to spend so much learning time up front? Surely you’re going to learn more about nursing by actually doing the job, you know, like the old way, instead of spending extra time in a classroom!

I’ve also been thinking recently, and you may not agree, that it’s not unreasonable to hypothesise that the increase in degree qualified people has directly contributed to a dearth of skilled labour in this country, to the extent that the country has had to import foreign workers to carry out many of the roles previously carried out by people who chose not to, or did not qualify to go to university, such as plumbers, builders and so on.

We need to have a mix of academic and practical people for the country to succeed. A university education is clearly not suitable for everyone so why does there seem to be so much belief that going to university (and ending up in masses of debt) is the “done thing”? Going to university certainly does not make you better than someone who doesn’t go, just different, and I think those differences should continue in order for society to benefit from diversity. We really don’t need a high proportion of graduates ending up on the dole because their degrees that don’t actually qualify them to do any particular type of work.

Funding of universities is an investment in the future of the country; we need to continue to encourage the most academic school-leavers to go on to further education because that is often the place where new technologies are developed. If you expect the students to pay then you will return to the ‘dark ages’ where only the rich, and not necessarily the most appropriate, people could afford to go to university.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who are not so academic but also have great ideas. As long as their skills are channeled in the right direction, there’s no reason why those people cannot be very successful but is channeling them through pointless university courses the right way to do that? I don’t think so.

Ultimately we do have a big problem, but I think it needs a far more fundamental shift back to restoring the difference between academic and practical knowledge, and how that knowledge is gained, than just effectively forcing more and more young people in to massive debt.

Well, it’s the day before the 2010 General Election in the UK, and I thought I’d pop up and air my views in public for the last time before the event.

I wrote a nice long note on Facebook the other day about it but, when I pressed the “Submit” button, it said I had to log in and then the text disappeared – what a bitch!

So – who shall I vote for?

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure but I know it won’t be Labour or Liberal Democrat. The choice really is between Conservative, just to make sure I can’t be blamed for them not winning my seat, or UKIP because I think Conservative will win my seat and it pains me deeply to even consider voting for them. The socialist Scottish upbringing has a lot to answer for!

So why not Labour or LibDem? Well, it’s a long story. In 1997 Labour inherited one of the strongest economies in Europe and look at us now! Thirteen years later and we’re close to bankrupt. Gordon Brown regularly claims “global economy blah blah blah” yet how come we seem to have been hit the hardest of the major economies in Europe? How come it was our currency that was diving against both the Euro and the US Dollar? If it was such a global economy, why wasn’t everyone hit much the same in which case I wouldn’t have expected to see any significant changes in the exchange rates. At this point I have to admit that I’m really not that clued up on how all this finance stuff works but my point is really that, if there’s a global economic downturn and we’re hit harder than most other developed nations, then surely that would point to something in the way the country is being run being sub-optimal!

I read a number of interesting statistics the other day. Admittedly they were in The News Of The World so I’m not sure whether to believe them 100% or not, but they were very intriguing. The stats are related to spending on the NHS and education, both places where Labour claims they’ve increased spending “in real terms” by significant amounts. In Education we’re spending something like 3 times as much money now compared to when Labour took over government, yet there are still 250,000 children leaving primary education unable to read or write. In the NHS spending has increased significantly yet the rate of increase in the number of managerial roles is 3 times that of actual nursing roles. To me this all sounds like wasted money and it seems that a lot of the money used to cover these increases has been borrowed!

As for LibDem, well, as a number of people have pointed out, their manifesto and policies remain as those of a party who were not expecting to govern and therefore they could say what they like. Despite their claims that they’re the only party to publish figures to back up their budget claims, they still seem very naive. Their policies may sound nice, at least some of the ones they’ve mentioned in debates, but will they work? Other than the obvious policies which could lead to even futher loss of sovereignty, my main concern with the LibDems is that, despite so much compelling evidence coming to light recently questioning the anthopogenic origin of “global warming”, they still seem to be embracing AGW as fact in a big way. They have policies like extracting billions of pounds from the roads budget and investing it in public transport. Now there are 30million drivers in the UK who will be affected by this. We’re not talking about the cost of fuel here, we’re talking about cancelled road building projects, maintenance budgets slashed and so on. Those who live in little villages who are campaigning for bypasses will be stuffed; you won’t be getting one under a LibDem government. Furthermore their idea that they can make tax fairer seems to me to be rather naive. They think they can close loopholes to prevent the rich avoiding paying tax – yeah, right! Given their clear lack of experience of government, I can see that ending up in a right mess, similar to how the Labour government’s handling of IR35 has been.

In case you’re not aware, around 10 years ago the Labour government decided that they would review how contractors worked. The gist of it was that they decided that people who were the sole employee of their own company, working under contract for a client (perhaps through an agency), on the client’s premises and somewhat under the client’s guidance should be treated as an employee for tax purposes. The last bit is important. In most cases the client/agent would be invoiced by the worker’s company, and the payment would be made to the worker’s company. The worker would often be paid a nominal salary, but would be a shareholder in his/her company and the rest of the company’s income would be issued as dividends. So what is the advantage of that? Well essentially it reduces the amount of National Insurance the worker pays. The change meant that essentially all, give or take a little bit, of the company’s income was treated as salary. The irony is though that, prior to that the person’s company would be paying Corporation Tax and Employer’s National Insurance contributions as well as the (admittedly minimal) Employee’s National Insurance contributions. Not only that, unlike a real employee, the worker would miss out on any benefits offered by their client (i.e. they party they were being treated as an employee of for tax purposes) such as paid sick leave, paid holidays and so on. Even worse, when things start to go pear shaped for the client, it tends to be the contractors who get the boot first. So essentially you were treated as an employee but had none of the benefits. Intriguingly there were a number of small companies whose founders had started off in this way and could only have grown their company because of the way things worked prior to this being brought in. Shouldn’t a government be trying to help small businesses to grow rather than hindering them? Right at the start it was unclear what conditions had to be met for a contract to come under the IR35 rules; as far as I know, ten years on the situation is no clearer! Surely a fair tax system should be clear – I can’t see anything the LibDems propose providing any more clarlity than the IR35 legislation.

Intriguingly, despite their claims that they’re being more honest than everone else, LibDem still appear to be trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Take their position on airfare taxes…

Ensuring pollution is properly taxed by replacing the per-passenger Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty (PPD), ensuring that air freight is taxed for the fi rst time. We will also introduce an additional, higher rate of PPD on domestic flights if realistic alternative and less polluting travel is available.

So what they’re saying is that you’ll no longer have to buy flight tickets for, let’s say, £0.04 and pay £25 tax on it. Wahey – isn’t that great? Well, no. The money for the “per-plane duty (PPD)” has to come from somewhere, the airlines aren’t going to just pay for it out of their own pocket, so the tax will go on to the airfare. Of course that may make the cost of air travel clearer (as it is a bit of a pain at the moment seeing you’ve got cheap fares then having to work out the actual cost and seeing it’s not so cheap). But then won’t it make sense to tax air freight? Well no. Freight basically means “goods”. Many day to day provisions are carried by air so where does the money come from to pay for those taxes? Well it will come from the freight lines, who will add it to the cost of carriage to their customer who will in turn add it to the cost of the goods at the point of sale, i.e. you will pay more in the shop for goods carried by air than you do now.

One thing to consider though As I understand it, at the moment air travel isn’t subject to VAT however if that were to change would you prefer to pay VAT on the price of the ticket, or the price of the ticket including PPD. Certainly, from precedent with VAT on petrol, if VAT was introduced on air fares, you’d most likely pay VAT on top of the duty rather than before it.

Finally this seems to be based on the premise that air travel contributes to global warming; interesting then that the figures showed an increase in global temperature during the period immediately after 11th September 2001, when there were no flights for days – shouldn’t it have got cooler!

Still, it really doesn’t matter; LibDem are not going to win the election, the real issue is whether voting for them results in a hung parliament, which isn’t good for anyone.

So to sum it up, the major party I see as having the least wrong with them is Conservative. There are still a number of Conservative MPs who fought in Thatcher and Major’s cabinet so they have some experience to fall back on. Many people say “but look at what the tories did the last time”. What they seem to forget is the last time the tories were in power they were cleaning up the crap from the way Labour left it in 1979! The other thing I remember about the tories is that the last time they were in power (i.e. when Major won the election) there majority was so low that they really couldn’t get any stupid bills passed. That, to me, is an ideal situation and the closest thing to democracy that we’re ever likely to get in this country. It has to be Conservative though; I can’t face another term under those halfwits in the Labour party!

There you have it – I can’t wait to see what the outcome is!

As you may know, I’m in a band called Tamakaze. We’ve been together for about 2 years now and playing the odd gig around about. We’ve played in various towns and cities around the Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire area, and a couple of gig in Newport.

We generally try to achieve something a little bit different in what we do and, as far as I can tell, it’s not that easy to ‘pigeonhole’ us as being of a particular style. Sometimes this takes a lot of effort, and there are loads of ideas we’ve gone through and decided that they don’t really work so they get abandoned.

I know that there are probably loads of people out there that unfortunately don’t like what we do; we’re never going to please everyone but we hope that some people genuinely like the music we produce or at least appreciate what we’re trying to do.

Over the last couple of years we’ve generally found it not exactly easy to get gigs. As we play original music rather than covers that rules out quite a lot of places and, as I mentioned above, there are probably some people who just don’t like what we do!

Speaking personally though, and not on behalf of my bandmates, what really frustrates me is that I see and hear comments about how brilliant some other bands are, or particular songs they’ve done that have been played on the radio, and keep hearing about the gigs they’re getting.

To my ears though many of these bands are just trotting out the same old musical styles that have been done to death over the last 40 years or so, namely classic and prog rock.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that way; some time ago we had a comment after one of our gigs. We’d played at the same show with two other bands, one classic rock, and one heavy metal. The person who said it shall remain nameless obviously, but the gist of it was that he said we were the only band who played that night that was doing anything different whereas he couldn’t really see any difference between the other two bands and the hundreds of others in the area doing the same sort of thing. That one comment has really had an impact on me and it’s the thought that there are others out there who think the same thing that really helps to keep me motivated.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think for a minute that I was criticising anyone’s musicianship; some of these guys have superb musical skills and really know what they’re doing on their instruments but I am, of course, jealous of the success they’re having at getting gigs.

‘Original’ though can be defined as “new; fresh; inventive; novel”. I believe we’re an originals band – at least we try to be.

Anyone who’s been my ‘friend’ on Facebook for a while may have seen my almost annual rant about the X Factor. Right since it began I’ve seen it as an overblown karaoke competition, with the winners being generally fairly average (at best) performers whose success relies on the massive hype of the X Factor, and the huge financial backing of SyCo/Sony Music. Not only that, but it’s always struck me as a cynical attempt by Simon Cowell to control who gets to number 1 at Christmas time in the UK.

It therefore struck me as one of the most hypocritical things I’ve ever heard in my life to hear Cowell describe Jon and Tracy Morten’s Facebook campaign (to get Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name” to number 1 instead) as “quite a cynical campaign geared at me which is actually going to spoil the party for these three [X Factor finalists].” I was totally speechless for days! What an idiot that guy is.

Not only that, his fellow X Factor judge Louis Walsh was quoted in the Irish Times as being even more idiotic saying “this is taking the fun out of the race for Christmas number one”! For god’s sake, The X Factor over the last 5 years has taken every ounce of fun and excitement out of the Christmas number one race; this campaign has, in fact, put all the fun and excitement back in!

What Jon and Tracy Morten, and all the real music fans on Facebook, have done is quite an achievement and they should all be congratulated on it. I’m aware that there was a similar campaign last year but, for some reason, it didn’t take off like this year’s. I have no idea why that was, perhaps it was due to the overriding mediocrity in this year’s X Factor contestants, or perhaps the number of people who’d just had enough had reached a critical mass. Perhaps though, it was just the inspired choice of a Rage Against The Machine track that fitted so well with the “Rage Against The X Factor” motto chosen.

Whatever it was, I hope that it makes a difference and that it can be followed up with next year.

I’ve only really cottoned on to RATM over the last few months, primarily due to Colin Murray playing “Renegades of Funk” late one Friday night but I’ve now realised that, while I don’t like everything they’ve done, some of their work strikes of utter brilliance. However I can easily see why anyone who’s what I’d call a “passive listener”, that is, someone for whom music is just a distraction, not someone who really gets engaged in the music, finds “Killing In The Name” to be much like noise. It’s a track that demands concentration to be enjoyed. Personally I love it, it has a fantastic groove and I don’t need to mention the message in the lyrics. I’m pleased that it has found a wider audience, even if many of them aren’t interested, but more than that I’m so incredibly pleased that it has broken the stranglehold that the crap coming from the X Factor has held over the Christmas number 1. I’ve also been particularly impressed with the way RATM themselves have taken the whole situation.

Ultimately though, I am so, so glad that the X Factor boat has been rocked, ever so slightly. Perhaps this is the event that will make people wake up and see the X Factor in the same way as I’ve always seen it; a glorified karaoke competition, with winners who are incapable of sustaining a career any longer than the time it takes for Cowell and his cohorts to get bored with them and on to the next year’s event! Perhaps this will, in its small way, contribute to the downfall of this sort of crappy reality TV show, I certainly hope so; I’m sick and tired of nearly every TV program I see asking for people to phone in and vote for some numpty or another. Isn’t it time the TV stations got back to providing real, educational entertainment rather than just trying to make a fast buck from premium rate phone lines!

As one final note though, I have to give masses of kudos to Will Young . The winner of the inaugural Pop Idol competition, basically the forerunner of The X Factor, has gone on to massive critical and commercial success, primarily due to his innate talent, his personality and his choice not to continue being a pawn in a game played by people like Simon Cowell and so on. He’s shown what’s needed to succeed from that sort of start, and it clearly takes a lot more than just being able to hold a tune that someone else wrote!

I’ve just installed Wordbook by Robert Tsai, so thought I’d see how it goes!

Sometimes I wonder at the stupidity of people. In this case it’s in relation to eBay. I’ve been looking for a Behringer FBQ1502, 15 band graphic equaliser with feedback detection. What with the UK <> EU exchange rate fluctuations recently, the prices have gone up a bit, but quite a few have gone on eBay for around £35 recently.

This morning though, one I was watching, went for £75.50 with £10 postage, so £85.50. It was a used item from a private seller with no returns listed (and also not subject to the Distance Selling Regulations, which allow you to change your mind within 7 days).

Now two things strike me as odd on this.

First of all, even on eBay you can get a better deal on a new one of these. Just Add Music, the eBay arm of Blue Aran are currently selling these for £76.99 with £6.90 postage, so a grand total of £83.89, £1.61 less that the bidder paid for the used one.

Not only that, if you go to the Blue Aran website today, they’re on sale at £65.11 with £5.88 delivery, a grand total of £70.99, a full £14.51 less than the used version.

Funnily enough this happened before when I was watching something. It was an effects pedal coming to the end of production. A used one went on eBay for £63 on the same day it was in a half price sale at ~£32 for a brand new one in an online shop.

So, are people really so stupid that they assume they’ll get a bargain on eBay? Or is there more to it?