Dramatic and beautiful pictures of massed starlings at Westhay appeared in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph last week..   more »

If you were not at the public meeting of the Parish Council last week, you will have a completely false impression, thanks to the front page headline in the Mid Somerset Gazette: Police voice ghetto fear.   more »

By coincidence I have three Street Society meetings this week; not full meetings, or committee meetings, but small groups getting down to particular issues.   more »

The new concert hall was the chief attraction.   more »

When this small development was being built I called them mini-houses. Now that they are finished, they don't look so small. In fact, there's a lot to admire about the design.   more »

Clockhouse View houses   more »

Sue Monaghan, who has been active in consultations about the large housing development on the site of former Clarks buildings called the Houndwood Development, has just been round with a CD rom which I uploaded to my laptop.   more »

The Street Society moved for the first time to the Parish Church for the first meeting of the year today.



It seemed reasonable to meet there to hear George Chedburn, the architect behind the reordering of the building, so that his hearers could see the results as he spoke.   more »

Councillor David Pipes has told me about a very recent application to demolish this handsome 19th century house near Street Cross.   more »

The Times today gives a positive spin to proposals to take away many of the powers of local people to influence what new building is allowed in their area, by leading on loft conversions; but the sinister larger picture is hidden several paragraphs down.   more »

There was a meeting of what are called 'stakeholders', people who have a stake in what the new Houndwood housing development will be like, on Monday.   more »

Despite rather threatening clouds and a less than optimistic weather forecast, we had a great evening at the home of Anthony and Sarah Clothier. You can see my pictures here.   more »

Mr Clothier has kindly invited the Street Society to the grounds of his home, Leigh Holt, this evening, and I ...   more »

Mendip District Council's circular about how they are going to collect our rubbish arrived today.

Some progress, then. Ordinary dust-bin collections once a fortnight rather than weekly, because we won't have so much to put in them once we've separated out the paper, the glass and the tins. And these, the paper, glass and tins, are going to collected weekly.

That suits our household down to the ground. We only put out our wheelie bin once in about 3 weeks anyway. And the black plastic box isn't big enough for the recycling stuff, now that my son has trained us to put everything in the right places.

What I think could be improved is the sanctions on those who don't comply. Let me quote:

What if I don't want to sort out my household waste?

From now on the Household Waste collection services offered by Mendip Dostrict Council will focus on recycling and waste minimisation. The government requires us to do this, we need you to help. .... If you do not want to sort out your household waste you may find that you will not have enough room for your waste in your wheeled bin, as extra waste will not be collected you will have to take it to your HWRC for disposal.

That's an invitation to those who don't care about the environment to sort just the minimum, enough to ensure that their dustbin doesn't overflow. I remember Alistair Cooke in one of his Radio 4 'Letters from America' telling how they sorted their waste, because otherwise they would be fined. That was about 10 years ago, in the Great Polluting Nation. If it's important to save our countryside from being taken over and poisoned by buried rubbish, why ever not make sorting compulsary?

It's the same weak government (I'm not talking party politics - they're all the same) that allows gas-guzzling 4by4s, with their child-killing bull-bars, to clog cities, that is lax in enforcing speed limits, and that bends over backwards to let the rich kill our villages with second or third homes. On a phone-in this week a gentleman from one of the Scottish islands, I think, proposed to a government minister that those who owned a second home should pay double Council Tax on each home, and those who owned three should pay triple tax on all three. The concern was the way houses in the country are being snatched from village people and all housing there made unaffordable for workers. The minister would not even contemplate this financial disincentive to the rich.

Weak, weak, weak. My fear is that the nation will sink to such a state that a dictator will take over. It is not unthinkable. Mussolini was accepted by a very ancient and cultured nation, and made the trains run on time. Far better that our elected politicians show some backbone before it is too late.

I remember listening to bands playing on the bandstand in Merriman Park.   more »

Once there was a shelter for those who wished to sit in Merriman Park.   more »

Merriman Park is only a few yards from the High Street, and is a favourite play space for children and young teens, as well as being used by older people for walking and sitting to enjoy the sunshine. After all the flowers in the High Street and Clarks Village, the park is very short of flowers. If we don't have the money to pay for the upkeep of flowerbeds, what about a planting programme of flowering shrubs? I don't think they would attract the attention of vandals, and they really would enhance the park, which is a fine space waiting for someone with vision to redesign and beautify it.

Sitting next to Boots, Crispin Hall as it is seen from the High Street. You can't see the tower from here, so the building doesn't look so distinctive, but it's still a fine view. Incidentally, the contrast between the real blue lias stone of Crispin Hall and the reconstituted stone of the building next door is clear. The Parish Council is, I believe, keen on Street's new buildings being grey (in contrast to Glastonbury which is largely red brick), but I'm not sure.

A sad sight in Merriman Road.