THING OF THE WEEK
TEST… Some people love test match cricket by virtue of its attritional nature. However, there is nothing attritional or indeed boring about the current England cricket team, whose default mindset is to attack and claims to ‘not do draws’. They are currently playing out a thrilling test series against India with the next match, at Old Trafford, due to start next week. For those seeking the warm embrace of turgidity that England teams of old used to provide – think Clive Radley’s 400-ball ton against New Zealand in 1978 – might I point you in the direction of Salford City Council’s planning committee, who debated one item – the 3,300-home redevelopment of Regent Retail Park – for almost three hours this week and still failed to come to a decision. This is the built environment equivalent of five days of toil only for the match to end in a draw; nobody is happy and everybody is a bit fed up.
Credit: Simon Harmer on Unsplash
TWENTY’S PLENTY… A wave of 20mph zones will soon roll out across Westmorland and Furness in Cumbria in what the local council is calling a “community-led” initiative. We will see just how “community-led” it is in a couple of months once drivers have had the chance to get good and angry about the change. In Wales, a similar initiative ended in farce when the government reinstated 30mph limits on some roads that had been dropped to 20mph after a backlash. Westmorland and Furness will be hoping the beautiful scenery in the Lake District will be enough to placate drivers.
ROOM WITH A VIEW… For an architect, sketching in your spare time sounds a bit like a busman’s holiday. However, for Turner & Townsend’s Marion Room, it’s all part of the fun of a trip abroad. Unwilling to let the beautiful scenery and architecture of Catalunya pass her by, she spent a recent trip to Spain’s north-eastern corner drawing what she saw.
COSMO in Preston will feature robot waiters. Credit: via Limitless PR
COSMOPOLITAN… Having been among the first to commit to space at Animate in Preston back in 2022, restaurant COSMO has announced an opening date – Sunday 27 July. There will surely be something for every palate at the buffet, which claims to serve 150 different dishes from around the world, but these kinds of buffet situations – think bubbling vats of sticky sweet gloop – are not for everyone. For those not keen on being reminded about the terrible bout of food poisoning they got at an all-inclusive at Fuerteventura back in 2005, perhaps you might be intrigued enough to pay a visit to see robot waiters Hola and Bella, which translates to ‘hello beautiful’ – which you should absolutely not say to a waiter, robotic or otherwise.
Credit: Sardar Faizan via Unsplash
SPUD AGAIN… Potato sensations Spud Bros are back in the news again. A few weeks ago they secured approval for a larger spud site in the centre of Preston – now the brothers are branching out to Liverpool. They announced this week that they would be moving into the former Costa Coffee unit at Queen Square, a space that would trump their London site in terms of size. It is true what they say, you can’t keep the spud guys down.
Credit: Jonah Brown on Unsplash
TRUMP… The US President’s attacks on universities like Harvard could have a positive impact on UK institutions. Amid concerns about dwindling student numbers over here, the FT has this week reported that Trump’s actions in the States have promoted a 14% surge in applications from US citizens for spots at British universities. We envisage this having a knock-on effect on the types of amenity provided in PBSA schemes going forward. Did someone say beer pong bar?
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Careful what you wish for, Westmorland. Tourism figures in north Wales are falling as fast as Wales’s reputation as a result of its 20mph fiasco. It smacked of political over-reach then, and it does now.
By Anonymous
Truly excellent test cricket analogy
By H
To give some sympathy to councillors on planning committees up and down the country, they tend to maybe get a week to get to grips with an application before any committee meeting. That’s a relatively short time to digest a full report, submissions, representations and other matters before coming to a decision on the night.
That is often easier to do and to understand for smaller scale developments but with these strategic sized ones even if they had a briefing as part of a pre-application enquiry, and kept themselves aware of amendments etc on public access during consideration it’s still difficult to give an informed view.
As part of central government’s approach to committees – and the potential use of ones for strategic sized development – maybe they could look at increasing the amount of time committee reports need to be made public?
By JohnMac
People judging where they go on holiday based on whether or not they can go fast in their cars have some serious growing up to do
By Anonymous
Only in Britain – in Europe at least – could basic road safety policy be politicised. The evidence base is pretty much unanimous & not particularly tricky to find. 30kmh / 20mph limits save lives, cut pollution, improve congestion flow.
Would be interesting to compare and contrast the views of locals vs. tourists as to pro / anti.
As for ‘political overreach’ – if local politicians can’t be given the scope enforce basic DfT approved policy without calls for Westminster to jump in, why even bother with Local Government at all.
By Anonymous
20mph?!..I don’t think it’s based on how fast you can go I think it’s based on whether you can get where you need to get before your holiday ends!…Deary me !
By Anonymous