No 1, October 1997
HOMING IN ON A RIP-OFF!
WITH a Lib Dem council and a
Labour Government you might have thought yet more privatisation was the last
thing on the political agenda. If so, you'd have been completely and utterly
wrong, as Worthing Borough Council is planning to sell off its council houses
to a private company.
It is trying to get away with doing this with the minimum of fuss and
publicity and is hoping that council tenants will meekly go along with it when
they eventually get a chance to vote on the cunning scheme. But The
Pork-Bolter advises them to get fully informed NOW, join the tenants'
association in large numbers and stand firm against what looks like another in
a long line of rip-offs directed against the ordinary people of Worthing by
the smug and self-interested “powers-that-be”.
The excuse behind the plan is that central government cuts have left the
borough without the cash to keep up its housing services. But its own reports
reveal the disturbing consequences of privatisation. The Pork-Bolter
wonders why the council and its officers are so keen to push ahead with the
project. The borough is keen to point out that the new business will be
“non-profit making”, but tenants might like to ask who will be
running the privatised Worthing Homes, what salaries they will be on and what
other financial benefits will be on offer.
In short, WHO WILL BENEFIT from this highly dodgy proposal? It certainly
won't be the people who actually live in the council houses.
The borough's own list of disadvantages to the scheme
includes:
* Loss of democratic control.
* Loss of statutory rights - ie the private firm will be able to kick you
out of your home more easily.
* “The transfer of homes is irreversible” - ie council housing,
built and paid for by generations of Worthing people, will be lost to us
forever, whatever happens in the future.
But the worst indictment of the council's attitude comes in its list of the
“advantages” of privatization. One of these turns out to be that
“rents can be set which are not subject to Government regulation”.
Oh good! They can put the rent up as much as they like! For whom, exactly, is
that an “advantage”? We think we should he told!
The council will try to slip this one past the public by saying there will
he some sort of freeze on rent rises for five years. But after that, you can
be sure that all hell will break out. And, because it will all be under
private ownership and out of “democratic control”, there will be
nothing any of us will be able to do about it!
But it's not too late yet. Join the tenants' association (West and Central
Worthing: Mrs I Holman, 12 Harefield Ave, BN13 1DP 263201; East Worthing: John
Blann, 44 Meredith Rd, BN14 8EE, 210079) and make porking sure they fight this
plan!
Pedalling power of protest
ON September 20, 90 people
gathered under the banner of Critical Mass to publicly demonstrate their grief
at the tragic, needless loss of a beautiful vibrant young woman, who touched
many people's lives: Danni Plank, 29, mown down in Shoreham whilst cycling
home from work. The men, women and children of all ages and backgrounds
(including car owners!) completed the journey that Danni was so cruelly
deprived of and cycled from Shoreham to Worthing. Hundreds of westbound
motorists suffered frustrating delays in a queue that, at times, seemed to
stretch from Shoreham to Worthing. During that enforced “pause”
did they, perhaps, reflect on their tacit connivance with a culture thay urges
us to be faster, flashier, bigger, better! West Sussex County Council figures
show 459 cyclist casualties during 1996. 70 per cent of these were caused by
“driver error”. If you were a motorist on the A259 last Saturday
did you 'fume'? Then join the campaign for adequate cycling lanes. (Contact
Worthing Friends of the Earth on 01902 529583, Roadpeace on 0181 964 1021 or
Reclaim the Streets on 0171 281 4621.
Look who's stalking
MAYBE The Pork-Bolter is too
cynical for its own good, but it does seem sometimes that new laws never turn
out to be quite what they were supposed to be... Hot on the heels of the
popular and constructive Criminal Justice Act, on June 14 this year The
Protection From Harassment Act came into force. You must remember the hype
over this one, on every TV channel and in every newspaper. Nasty
“stalkers” were suddenly making people's lives a misery all over
the country and something had to be done. On the wave of public outrage, the
law was passed and the menacing ubiquitous figure of The Stalker disappeared
back into the obscurity from which he had emerged. But the legislation went
through and less than THREE weeks after it came into force an amazing thing
happened just up the road from here in Upper Beeding.
Animal rights supporters were protesting outside the home of a director of
Consort, a firm supplying cuddly beagles to be tortured by the biomedical
industry, when they were offered some pieces of paper by the friendly rural
bobbies of Steyning police. Rightly assuming that they weren't being invited
to the local CID's dirty video 'n' kebab night, they declined to take them. It
turned out that they were leaflets warning them they could be breaking the law
under you've guessed it - the “anti-stalking” Protection from
Harassment Act! Said Gareth Crossman of Liberty, the national Council for
Civil Liberties: “The law was supposed to be used to deal with people
suffering from harassment. But it is adding to the state's armoury against an
individual's right to peaceful protest.”
Big Brother Solves Post Office Queue Crisis!
WITH the
“anti-stalking” sleight of hand still fresh in the mind, a
front-page article in The Independent on Sunday on September 7 leapt
out as an indication of what we are to expect next in the way of freedom and
democracy from Our Worthy Ruler, Big Brother. The idea of a centralised
government databank keeping track of every aspect of the life of each and
every individual has been a nightmare in the popular imagination since the
days when computers made lots of bizarre whirring noises and needed a room the
size of the proposed Millennium Poison-Dome to work out the square root of
1,984. The big news is that it's now going to happen! But there's no need to
worry, excitable proles, because it's all being introduced simply to
“make pen-pushing and post office queues things of the past”,
according to the IoS. And to make the state “more user-friendly and
approachable”.
Ah, so that's all right then. Let's all just go back to watching reassuring
pap on the TV, working and consuming excessively and obediently and looking
forward to the end of the year, when the convenience-enhancing new state
“smart cards” are due to be unveiled.
Alternatively, grab hold of a copy of Big Brother: Britain's Web of
Surveillance and the New Technological Order by Simon Davies (Pan, 1997,
£5,99) and get up to date with what is really going on…
What a Porker-Corker!
HELLO and welcome to the wonderful
Worthing-ite world of The Pork-Bolter. This newsletter has nothing to do with
the silly games of party politics but is a new, local and genuinely
independent initiative. We intend to stand up for the ordinary people of
Worthing, their rights, their heritage and their future. For an explanation of
our name we would refer you to the Penguin Dictionary of Historical
Slang, which explains that, in Worthing's fishing village days, its
inhabitants were known in Sussex for their “superstitious dread of
pigs”, from which they “bolted”. Reasons for this are not
stated, though we are reliably informed that for both our Saxon and Celtic
ancestors pigs and boars were sometimes linked to the Goddess of Death, who
anyone would run away from.
Page two of The Pork-Bolter asks:
How Green is Our Council?
WHY do Worthing Borough Council
produce a “Green Charter” setting out their environmental policy?
Because they genuinely realise how important our environment is and are taking
every measure they can to protect it - or because they have been forced by the
Government (who were forced by the Earth Summit agreement) to produce such
documents as part of Local Agenda 21? In their Green Charter the council state
that they wish “to minimise the adverse environmental impact of new
development in Worthing... The Council will seek to minimise movement of
vehicles and energy consumption through the appropriate location of
development”.
Sounds pretty impressive until you consider the out-of-town Multiplex they
gave the go-ahead to before the Government stepped in to look at it again.
This greenfield development at Durrington was to include a multi-screen
cinema, entertainment centre and a drive-through restaurant. Minimising
vehicles and energy consumption? Appropriate location? We think not.
Councillor Bob Clare's reaction was “I think we should grab this
opportunity with both hands”. Oh yes, Mr Clare - opportunity for what,
exactly?
And, whilst we're on the subject, why did the very same Mr Clare vote in
favour of the similarly damaging development at the Northbrook College site in
Broadwater which he had originally strongly opposed? Perhaps he would like to
write in and enlighten us!
The Green Charter goes on to say: “...the Council can influence
the pattern of development to reduce the need to travel, promote means of
transport other than the car, reduce pollution and energy use and protect open
land and natural habitats.” Yes, the council can influence
development, but do they? Or does development (or should we say
developers) influence them? We wonder.
Whatever you think, there's no denying the mammoth differences between what
the council say and what they actually do. Perhaps the best contribution they
could make to our environment would be to save the vast amounts of paper used
to print their smug, self-congratulatory rhetoric. After all, it's deeds not
words that really count.
Make your views known. Write to Worthing Borough Council at
the Town Hall, Chapel Road, Worthing and to the local papers: Worthing
Herald, Cannon House, Chatsworth Road, Worthing and Worthing
Guardian, 56a Chapel Road, Worthing.
Take action. Contact local pressure groups: Worthing Friends of
the Earth, 15 Warwick Place, Worthing and Worthing Green Party, c/o
23 Wallace Avenue, Worthing.
Maurice Williams RIP
MANY people knew Maurice Williams, who
died last month aged 82. For all his adult life Maurice was involved with
community activities in Worthing and in particular Tarring, where he had been
a resident since 1920. “Skip” Williams was the son of Montgomery
Williams and a descendant of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Seal during
the reign of James I. He was, however, a man who lived in the present and gave
much time and effort to improve facilities for the youngsters of Worthing.
Unlike many “youth” workers he was never patronising, but talked
as plainly to a lager-drinking fifteen year old in Tarring park as he did to
the people in the Planning Department at Worthing Borough Council. For the
last ten years he battled to show that the council had been guilty of
maladministration when they gave permission to a developer to fell most of the
ancient trees in the Tarring Fig Gardens. Most unusually, the Local Government
Ombudsman agreed with Maurice, much to the Borough's embarrassment. Much,
much, more could be said of this remarkable man, who after more than 60 years'
service well deserved the title “Mr Tarring”.
Proud tradition of English dissent
WITH all the fuss
currently being made about those naughty people who dare to take on big
business and the state with direct action tactics, you would think it was
something new and alien to this country. In fact, the
“Do-It-Yourself” political culture of the 1990s is merely the
latest manifestation of a long and proud tradition of English protest. This
reality is the starting point of a new book published by The Big Issue called
Gathering Force, which celebrates our national spirit of rebellion and
resistance which has so infuriated generations of rulers who want nothing more
than a docile and easily manipulated population of worker drones and happy
consumers. It shows how those who today take up the struggle to protect our
countryside or our community from exploitation are following in the footsteps
of dissidents like the Diggers in the 17th century or the Luddites in the
early nineteenth century, who fought against enforced industrialisation and
starvation-level wages.
PORKY PIE'S TIP OF THE MONTH:
HOW T0 CONFUSE A CCTV SPY CAMERA!
- Walk slowly and purposefully towards camera: It will start to monitor
you.
- Keep going right up to the pole on which the camera is mounted, then
stop.
- Watch as the camera swivels round in confusion trying to locate you
– it can't!
- Earthlings: 1 Daleks: 0
PORK-SCRATCHINGS
VICTORY has been claimed in a battle to save
Offham Marshes near Lewes. The Site of Special Scientific
Interest was threatened with being ploughed up by the same farmer, Justin
Harmer, who had earlier damaged Offham Downs SSSI to grow flax. Info: Brighton
and Hove Friends of the Earth on 01273 324455.
* * *
THE Countryside Commission is seeking opinions about the South
Downs. To get information about putting your view across and/or
attending a conference at Sussex University on November 26, write to Sussex
Arts Marketing, 41 Addison Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 1TQ, tel 01273 724811.
* * *
STRANGE goings-on involving Sussex Police on the Downs near Eastbourne last
month. Armed with large halogen lights and coloured filters, the Custodians of
Law and Order mounted a UFO hoax. When curious locals turned up
to see what was going on, they nicked them for listening to police radio - the
whole point of the bizarre exercise. Nice to know they've got the time and
money to spare on this sort of stunt!
* * *
THE first year of CCTV cameras in Worthing has resulted in a
pathetic tally of arrests for minor offences. Among the highly dangerous and
organised criminals brought to book by the spy lenses were two youths seen
kicking a window and a couple “smoking a joint”. Again, the words
“waste” and “money” spring to mind!
* * *
WILL MCMAHON of Campaign Against the Arms Trade will be speaking
on The New Labour Government and Arms Trade Policy on Tuesday October 14 at
Friends Meeting House, Priory Road, Chichester, 7.30pm.
* * *
LETS are local, non-profit exchange networks in which all kinds of goods and
services can be traded without the need for money. According to Letslink
UK “any group or community can start a local network. The cost
of running it can be covered by local membership fees of between £5 and
£10 and the only equipment required is access to a photocopier and home
computer”. If anyone out there wants to set up a scheme in Worthing,
we'll be happy to publicise it for you! For basic details and contacts send
four first class stamps to Letslink UK at 61 Woodcock Road, Warminster BA12
9DH. Tel/fax 01985 217 871. Or send £10 (payable to Letslink UK) for a
start-up pack.
Keep your snout in The Pork-Bolter trough - subscribe!
ISSUE
2 of The Pork-Bolter will be out in November. If you want to make sure of
getting a copy, simply send us a stamped self-addressed envelope. To get the
next 6 issues send a donation of at least £2 (please think about about
making it a bit more, if you really want to help us!). Cheques and postal
orders should be made payable to The Pork-Bolter. All correspondence to PO Box
4144, Worthing, West Sussex BN14 7NZ. See you soon!
Official Warning
DISREGARD everything you have read in this
newsletter. It is not a good idea to criticise Worthing Borough Council on any
grounds and under whatever circumstances. Remember that your elected
representatives always have your interests at heart. Tenants should vote yes
to having their rents put up and their rights taken away. Trust authority -
you know it makes sense. Finally, take no notice of local superstitions and
never, ever run away from pigs!
Printed and published by The Pork-Bolter, PO Box 4144, Worthing BN14 7NZ.
No copyright.
and finally ...
Reclaim Your Town, Reclaim Your Life!
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