Cries of outrage
Roy Hattersley It is not only Gordon Brown who has to make difficult choices between prudence and public expenditure. Our parish council has just announced a cut in services which — as cuts in services always do — has produced cries of outrage from the families most affected. I am preparing a cry of outrage myself which I propose to deliver by hand as soon as it is drafted to my satisfaction. My difficulty with the syntax arises from the word 'cut', which, in the context of objectionable decision, sounds like a bad joke. For my complaint concerns the decision no longer to cut the grass on either side of a public footpath which runs from the back of my house to the churchyard. Abandoning its care and maintenance would reduce the parish's expenditure by £400 — as a proportion of the budget, producing savings of approximate equivalence to Gordon Brown abandoning the renewal of Britain's nuclear weapons. As always with arguments about public expenditure, there are dark hints that claims about the need to economise are camouflage behind which are hidden objections in principle to subsidising a service which only a select few enjoy.
I am not the only outraged Arcadian. Although the path runs from almost opposite my back gate, and I walk along it with my dog, Buster, night and morning, it is most regularly used by the more pious members of our community as a short cut between Main Street and the church. The path will, no doubt, remain. So will the light which illuminates it from time to time. But without proper care and maintenance, those of us who pass that way will be required to walk through a statement of neglect. And, since we take an appropriate pride in our village's appearance, we will find that a regular humiliation. The problem is complicated — as almost everything in the village is — by a combination of history and the Peak Park Planning Authority.
The plot of land is owned by one of the historic families who have lived hereabouts for almost a thousand years. But it is rented, for a nominal sum, by the parish. Its value is merely scenic. It would be unsuitable for building on, even if the PPPA would allow it. And that is inconceivable. A plan to sell off part of it to the cottages whose back walls mark its south-western boundaries has been frustrated by the planners' refusal to allow hedges or fences to define the newly acquired gardens. It is open space or it is nothing. But open spaces come in different shapes and sizes.
This one could easily become a small wilderness.
In a town or city it would be called an amenity. Alongside the path there is a bench on which hikers often sit to eat their sandwiches. Sometimes their children play hide-and-seek behind the clumps of shaggy bushes which were planted at the expense of one of Derbyshire's rural protection societies. Until now, the bushes have been kept in good, if irregular, order. If we had boys in the village, they would no doubt use the patch of land to play ball games. But we are short of boys. So no one can complain that it's the site and source of regular annoyance. The families whose gardens mark its north-eastern boundary have planted perennials along the side of the path. And it seems that, at some time in the past, beds of roses were cut into the grass to remind passers-by that they walked through a memorial. They have merged with the land. But despite that (or perhaps because of it) every prospect pleases. On Sunday, the first snowdrops of 2007 had burst into life.
What may lie ahead has been graphically described by the first complainant — an ex-chairman of the parish council who reminded his successor of what the controversial piece of land had looked like before it passed into public care and protection. The weeds, of course, grew wild. Somebody — with what authority I know not — fenced part of it off and grazed his (or her) goats on the rough grass. The fence broke and the goats escaped. However, what ought to be the conclusive argument in an admirably well-argued case came in the form of a question about the future, not a revelation about the past. If the piece of land was allowed to return to nature, would we ever again win the Best Kept Derbyshire Village Award?
The debate has, therefore, been cunningly changed from a sordid wrangle about money to a high-minded test of pride in the village. To save £8 a week, the parish council would be risking all we hold dear. It is such a persuasive argument that there is a real chance that the parish council will change its mind and save us the necessity of finding a benefactor who will pay for the work to be done. You see, as well as worrying about public expenditure, the parish council also has to ponder the merits of privatisation.
Roy Hattersley, 2007
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