Issue 30 - September 2000
Aquarena and Montague Place show that Worthing folk are being BETRAYED
BY THE COUNCIL
NEW homes built all over the Aquarena and the popular
paddling pool? Shops and offices covering over the refreshing open space of
Montague Place? Virtually nobody in Worthing would want to see either of these
nightmares come true, and yet both are being actively pursued by corrupt
Worthing Borough Council and its chums in the building business drooling over
lucrative deals. Such has been the anger over the proposals to close the
Aquarena and paddling pool, that there are talks of a council 'U-turn'. But it
is interesting that Patricia Farrell, chairman of the council’s leisure
services committee only dared tell The Worthing Guardian (August
4): "We are nowhere near a decision on this vital issue", rather than a more
reassuring and binding "We will definitely not go ahead against the wishes of
the public." Don’t be surprised if the council lies low for a while,
waits for the fuss to die down and then puts in a new, slightly modified plan.
This is the sort of game it has played in Montague Place, where, after massive
protests, applications were withdrawn. Instead, the focus was switched to
designating the area for development in the Local Plan, a suggestion not
revised in the new draft, despite further objections. And, surprise, surprise,
on August 19 we spotted building firm workers out measuring the open space...
Whatever happened to the 'key priority' published by the council
(Worthing Herald, July 13) of "ensuring public opinion is taken
into account when major decisions are made?" Was it some kind of sick
joke?
Never trust a politician!
WHEN it was announced that
Worthing Homes, controllers of Worthing’s privatised
council housing, was to be a charity, a lot of people might have assumed this
meant it was going to be doing some good for our community. Sadly, though, it
seems that the recipients of its charity are not to be its long-suffering
tenants, or desperate homeless people in the borough, but Worthing
Homes’ own staff! The Worthing Herald revealed (August 3
and 10) that Worthing Homes spent more than £900 in paying for 17 staff
plus 10 wives and husbands to attend the Mayor’s Ball! Head of the queue
to condemn Worthing Homes was Lib Dem Sheila Player, who fumed: "Worthing
Homes would have been better off spending the money on the properties than
going to the Mayor’s Ball. The state of some of them is abysmal."
Could this possibly be the same Sheila Player who, three years ago, was at the
forefront of the council’s pro-privatisation propaganda drive? The same
Sheila Player who promised that private landlords Worthing Homes would provide
the answer to the 'abysmal' state of housing? Yes, it is! And will she
now put her hand up and admit that she was wrong and we were right all along?
We doubt it somehow - she is a politician, after all! * Readers will
not be surprised to learn that we have received no acknowledgment, let alone
reply, to the letter we sent Worthing Borough Council asking if all its
employees would be treated as generously as Chief Executive Michael Ball, who
received a £100,000 lump sum on his early retirement and a £32,000
a year pension for life. They are clearly continuing the tradition,
established by Mr Ball, of pretending that people who ask awkward questions,
like your Pork-Bolter, simply do not exist. Mr Ball, you may recall, actually
wrote to tell us he would henceforth ignore all our correspondence! Meanwhile,
both the council and Worthing Homes have referred our sister paper the
Worthing Herald to the Press Complaints Commission for having the cheek to
report on issues these smug bodies would rather not have aired. Like most
'authorities' they don’t care about the public’s views (see
above) and they don’t want the public to know what they’re
doing. And they wonder why nobody has any confidence in them any more?
Blair protects animal-torturers
A SINISTER new law is about
to be introduced by New Labour in a bid to protect corporate animal torturers
from the anger of the public. Reported The Guardian on September
15: "The government is expected to make it a criminal offence to publicise the
names or addresses of scientists, bankers and shareholders involved in drug
testing on animals as part of a wider crackdown on animal rights militants."
Yes, that’s right, a criminal offence to reveal a piece of information,
not to act upon it in any way. And, yes, that is names or addresses. Given all
its hype about being the animal lovers’ party before the 1997 election,
you might have thought New Labour would instead be making it a criminal
offence to experiment on animals! It’s the same old story. At the same
time as the state is bringing in more and legislation and surveillance aimed
at curtailing ordinary people’s freedom (see Porkbolter
issues 1-29), it is also creating a legal wall around an elite class of
"scientists, bankers and shareholders" to shelter them from the consequences
of their anti-social and immoral activities. And they call this democracy. *
Frontline animal rights activists will be giving a talk with a video at the
monthly meeting of Worthing.eco-action in the usual room at 42 Marine Parade,
Worthing seafront (above Paiges) on Tuesday September 5, 7.45pm.
Buy-a-Copper Scheme
THRILLED by this summer’s national
publicity about a firm that paid sponsorship money for a police patrol car and
officers to help protect its premises and a nearby housing estate, we at
The Pork-Bolter have decided to get in on the act. If big
companies can get away with it, why shouldn’t ordinary people be able to
purchase a policeman, or at least part of one? And we are so public-spirited
that we have decided to issue tokens* to help you save towards the total. Two
tokens will be printed in each month’s Pork-Bolter,
meaning that if you wish, for example, to collect 500 tokens for a
policeman’s corn plaster, it will take only 250 weeks or around 25 years
to claim your prize. * Value of each token is 0.0000000000000000001p. This
offer will be invalid if it turns out all the coppers in Sussex have already
been bought. We reserve the right to claim the whole thing was a silly joke,
honest officer, and not our idea at all.
Porky Pie’s Top Tip of the Month!
HOW TO KEEP ON THE
RIGHT SIDE OF AUTHORITY
- INDULGE ONLY IN AUTHORISED ACTIVITIES AT AUTHORISED SITES.
- ASSOCIATE ONLY WITH AUTHORISED PERSONS AT AUTHORISED TIMES.
- THINK AUTHORISED THOUGHTS, EXPRESS AUTHORISED VIEWS AND DREAM AUTHORISED
DREAMS
Name of new anti-skateboard group spells it out... Worthing against
Naughty Kids
LARGER than life Worthing councillor Nick
John has leapt nimbly onto the latest bullshit bandwagon to roll into
town. Following their foaming-at-the mouth furore over homeless people sitting
on pavements and having dogs (so shocking...), Worthing’s self-righteous
moral guardians have now decided to pick on young people with skateboards.
Having harrassed skateboarders, BMXers and roller bladers for years and tried
to drive them out of every corner of town, the authorities finally provided an
'authorised' site for them to use, in Homefield Park, complete with officially
'authorised' graffiti! But now residents and councillors are enraged to find
that youngsters are actually using the new skate park and like it so
much they are hanging out there with their mates, painting their own
graffiti and making it their own space. Intolerable! Leading
the crusade against skate-crime is Mr John, the Liberal Democrat turned
Referendum Party turned UK Independence Party turned Conservative Party
politician we featured in issue 28. He told The Worthing
Guardian (August 18) that "gang culture" was taking over the
park: "In the evenings it’s the 17 and 18-year-olds who gather there and
it’s actually very scary. It’s almost like West Side Story.
I think the whole facility should be enclosed and it should be shut at about
8pm each night." His words will come as boost to anti-skateboarding lobbyists
Worthing Against Naughty Kids (WANK), as it campaigns to
have all youngsters under the age of 21 locked indoors from 6pm to 7am and
forced to watch television and plan their pension schemes. Dick Seaman,
spokesman for the spunky new group, told us that the authorities could no
longer turn a blind eye to the horrific problem of young people gathering
together and having fun. He added: "As a merchant banker, I am often very
tired in the evenings after being hard at it all day and now I cannot even
walk the dog in peace." WHY do you think Nick John hates skateboarders so
much? Is it perhaps because: 1. He tried to have a go on a board once and he
fell off? 2. He tried to have a go on a board once and it snapped under his
weight? 3. Skateboarders would never dream of voting in stupid porkin’
council elections so he doesn’t care what the little oicks think of him?
4. He doesn’t hate skateboarders at all and only has their best
interests at heart? Let us know your views. Better still, let Nick John know
your views! Why not drop in at his Doyle’s Coffee Shop in Goring Road
for a chat and a doughnut?
Long wait for the cinema
IT was exactly a year ago in
September 1999 (issue 20) that we reported here that the multiplex cinema
promised for Teville Gate was not likely to materialise. On
August 3 this year The Worthing Herald broke the same news.
After explaining that his shop might not quit the site until 2003, Comet head
of property David Morris added: "I understand the developers are struggling
to find a cinema operator to occupy the site and are exploring a retail
scheme." Embarrassingly for Worthing council, another of its "key
priorities" (see top story) is "securing the early redevelopment of the
Teville Gate site to provide a multiplex cinema. . ."
Rotarians in a warzone
SAD tidings to relate. Reported
The Worthing Guardian on August 11: "Lack of new members has
caused the closure of Lancing and Sompting Rotary Club, 46 years after it was
founded." Something must be done to halt this alarming threat to our
heritage. We suggest all remaining Rotarians should be designated Scheduled
Ancient Monuments or at least preserved for posterity in formaldehyde. On the
same subject, a new local group has been launched. WAR, which the bloke down
the pub assured us stands for Worthing Anarchist Rotarians, is also to produce
an occasional fanzine-type publication called WARZINE, which you can pick up
on the anarchist stall in Montague Place on Saturday lunchtimes or send off
for (enclose two first class stamps) from WAR, c/o PO Box 4144, Worthing, BN14
7NZ.
Peanuts in your pay packet
ORDINARY people in Worthing and
the West Sussex coast are being ripped off by their bosses and paid peanuts
for wages. This admission came from county planning officer John
Kilford at a meeting in Worthing’s Richmond Room (Worthing
Herald, July 27). He said there were "real problems in the coastal
area" and explained: "What is particularly significant is that wages are
low and the take home pay of part-time and full-time workers compares with the
lowest in the country." So there you have it! And next time you read that
Worthing is the "most profitable" town in Britain, remember that it is
business that’s making the profits and your pocket that it
is robbing to do so! * Cheer up, there’s some good news! The Guardian
reported on August 22: "The pay of Britain’s top bosses
rose by 16.5% last year, four times the average wage increase." And who would
begrudge them that?
PORK-SCRATCHINGS
A NEW breed of eyesore is appearing in
Worthing, thanks to Railtrack. The firm has put up massive
prison camp-style security fences along much of the railway lin and on
footbridges. But most bizarrely of all it has fenced off the car park behind
Worthing station even though there is nothing to stop anyone
going in or out of the entrance at any time of day or night. What can it all
mean?
* * *
WORTHING’S half-hearted red cycle route has not impressed
local pedallers. One of them told us: "I think it’s worse than not
having one. It doesn’t get you where you want to go." And another
cycling cynic even suggested the lanes were deliberately useless so the
council could say nobody was using them and they could wriggle out of
providing any more!
* * *
CONGRATULATIONS to all those involved in the human chain against Third
World debt in South Street, Worthing, on July 22. Hopefully some of
those who took part will be able to join the big protests against the
IMF and World Bank in Prague in the last week of September. A
useful leaflet has been brought out including details on how to travel out to
Prague. Send us a stamp for a copy, pop in at Brighton Peace Centre or phone
01273 685913 for more information. Closer to home, you might like to protest
against the Labour Conference on Sunday September 24, 5pm at
Hove Town Hall. 07940 929565.
* * *
A REPORT back from the Prague protests is being lined up for the meeting of
Worthing.eco-action on Tuesday October 3, which as usual will be
at the meeting room, 42 Marine Parade, Worthing seafront (above Paiges bar),
from 7.45pm. For details of September’s meeting see animal story above.
* * *
BRILLIANT American anarchist John Zerzan, editor of superb anthology
Against Civilization, is giving a talk at Conway Hall, Red Lion
Square, London on Saturday September 23 at 7.30pm. Should definitely be worth
the train fare.
Democracy must not be abused
THIS newsletter may be breaking
the law by naming councillors involved in local politics, warns the
Ministry of Freedom. Added a spokesman: "Referring to any
authorised individual in a negative context is an invitation to terrorism and
cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. Democracy is a privilege which
must not be abused and people should be grateful that they are allowed to vote
in elections in the first place. They have no right to expect councillors to
pander to their unauthorised views."
Have you got swine fever yet? - subscribe!
THE PORK-BOLTER is
an unauthorised independent community newsletter for Worthing. If you want to
make sure of getting a copy of issue 31, simply send us a stamped
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Cheques/postal orders made payable to The Pork-Bolter. email
subscriptions also available. Drop us a line: porkbolter@eco-action.org or PO Box
4144, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 7NZ. website: http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter
Printed and published by The Pork-Bolter, PO Box 4144, Worthing BN14 7NZ.
No copyright - ie, we give you the right to copy us, you lucky people.
and finally ... WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
