Small island in which I rejoice

VJA Committee meeting - first anniversary

Jeevan, Imran and I on the Victoria Jubilee

The Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA) Association met in its clubroom on Saturday morning 11 June 2011; Phil Rose in the Chair. I said I wasn't a committee member but was welcomed (my commitment now is to stop talking, which I do well, and prove to myself I can grow food). People went round saying 'hullo' - Scylla - our secretary - Lorraine, Kashmeer (spelling?), Jeevan, Peter - our treasurer - Judy, Imran, Anna, Sonia, Carol, Robin, and another Lorraine - "Lorraine L". It was a chance for me to get an impression, over and above the progress I could see by strolling round the site, of progress behind the scenes [Photo with permission]

There were hiccups with the drains and the loo. The city council to whom we were all contracted was looking into that. Every plot was taken. There were people waiting. A grant had been won from Awards for All to construct a sensory garden. There was of course a shop staffed by volunteers on rota, with a supply of compost and sharps sand and access to further products on request, a selection of useful tools for gardeners to borrow including a rotavator, a strimmer, a trolley and hand truck. Finances were in good order. What I noted and enjoyed most was the slightly messy and relaxed banter of a reliable working committee, capable of making and following through decisions, allowing diversions but sticking to the agreed agenda while having a laugh now and then; not dominated by any one personality.
As I expected, the matter arose of plotholders who, for one reason or another, were allowing weeds to mature. I was inclined to keep my head down, though I have cut back on most seed heads and am slowly digging my way north, but one plot-holder, a friend - his largely fallow plot near ours  - was swift to remark the subjectivity of the term 'weed', knowing names - Horse’s tail, Oxeye daisy, Japanese knotweed - there's a devil - Bindweed, Yellow toadflax, Ragwort - the famous 'stinking willie' - Creeping Buttercup. Common Chickweed, Ground-elder, broadleaf dock, cushy-cows, kettle dock, smair dock and the prolific thistle family to name just a few - but pointing out that for some Fat-hen - Chenopodium album - an annual covering much of the site last summer and no doubt returning soon - is a cash crop eaten all over the world, expanding, when requested to cut his weeds down even if he didn't want to, or couldn't, dig his soil right now, on the point that some weeds if cut back grew even worse and, if dug up, made way for ones that are even less welcome.
"Will you just cut back the stuff on your plot, please, so the seeds don't fly all over the hard work of people who've been breaking their backs to draw a crop from their garden?"
The chair moved on over muttered interjections. There was an agenda item about a website for the VJA.

I and a committee member, Anna, pointed out that until such a time as one of us volunteered to design and maintain a website we could provide information about ourselves and communicate via an existing blog like mine, which could be searched for references under 'VJA' or 'Victoria Jubilee Allotments', or a set of pictures on a photo hosting site like flickr, with the option of adding links between pictures with texts containing further links to that blog or other relevant sites. At a pinch I suggested anyone could just search under 'Victoria Jubilee Allotments'. The name has a rich web presence because the internet had been so available while we were campaigning. I promised I'd post some links on Democracy Street that would point people to things that had gone on before the new VJA opened on 12 June last year - on the 11 June 2011 entry, the new VJA's first anniversary.
While I and others were campaigning to prevent a private housebuilder winning planning approval for building over the whole site, including our present allotments and the area now reserved for playing fields, we called ourselves, on the basis that information is power, the Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG) and produced a detailed argument for not building on any of the site, that revolved round the fact that there was enough demand for allotments in the area to take up all the plots on the private allotment site that had existed there since the 19th century. The Case for the Victoria Jubilee Allotments - report and appendices on Google.docs.
Around the time we were formulating our case and holding public meetings and circulating leaflets two films were made by the BBc that features the VJA.
1. Victoria Jubilee Allotments: BBC Private Investigations
2. Losing the Plot - Midland Report BBC 2000

Bobby, Scylla (Hon.Sec) and Joey - VJA 11 June 2011

And this was the case I made in 2003 to Birmingham City Planning Committee which 'compacted'- we were allowed 3 minutes - our case against the developer's application and delayed approval until a more generous planning gain agreement was concluded with the applicant and won us the site we now enjoy:

Comments by HAIG (Handsworth Allotments Information Group) on application N/01514/03/FUL – Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA)  - at Birmingham City Council Development Control meeting on 4 December 2003

I’m going to explain why the decision recommended to you is in clear breach of your duty as a Council to assess demand for allotments – not just on the VJA but across the city. I will, in your interests, take you through the key points

1. Para 3.62 of the Unitary Development Plan said “Where it can be demonstrated that the demand for allotments has fallen, consideration will be given to alternative uses for surplus allotments.”

The important words are demonstrate and demand – which refers to evidence of expressed and potential demand for allotments. Furthermore it says there must be “exceptional circumstances” to justify permitting “other forms of development”. Have exceptional circumstances been demonstrated?

2. This application, and your officer’s arguments for it, do not pass the first hurdle set by your own UDP – namely the demonstration of fallen demand.

i. On p.13 of his report your officer says waiting  lists in the vicinity of VJA equals 124 plots

ii. And on p.14, acknowledging the City holds no centralised waiting list information, he relies on a population based analysis of demand to suggest an over-provision of 279 plots.

3. Before accepting this “paper exercise” as a legitimate demonstration of fallen demand as required by the UDP, we must understand that by relying on points 2i) and 2ii) for this purpose, the officer is in clear breach of a duty to assess the need of the local community for allotment space. In effect BCC is relying on its own failure to assess demand to show there is no demand. 

4. The duty to assess needs for allotments is very clear

• Paras 1,2,3,5,10 in PPG17(see PPG17: Planning for Open Space, Sport and Recreation)

5. Where then is BCC’s assessment of the need/demand for

• allotments on VJA?

• allotments within 1 mile (or whatever is an appropriate minimum travel distance) of the VJA?

• allotments within the district i.e. Handsworth or North B’ham?

• allotments within the city?

6. No such assessment has been made by BCC. Given this clear breach of duty, involving a significant loss of allotment space, BCC cannot approve a project, or defer it merely to pursue a legal agreement with the applicant. It must either

• defer and meet the duty to assess, or

• reject (we note, by the way, that Westbury have not demonstrated  fallen demand through an independent assessment (see 3.2. Assessing needs etc in PPG17 companion guide)  )

7. In these circumstances the “paper exercises” of 2i) and 2ii) are insufficient. It doesn’t matter whether appropriate minimum provision is 7 plots per 1000, because BCC cannot rely on a paper exercise in the absence of “comprehensive” (3.1. Assessing needs etc in PPG17 companion guide) and “robust assessments” of the “existing and future needs” of the population for open space (PPG17 para 1). If there is an assessment meeting PPG17 duties, why does your officer’s report not refer to it?

9. So that makes 3 breaches in the recommendation before you – two of omission, one of commission. These entail

a) failure to assess need

b) failure to take into account the material consideration that need for allotments has not been properly assessed, and

c) taking account of an immaterial consideration, i.e. inadequate “paper” exercises claiming to prove a fall in demand which those of us who live in Handsworth have gone out on the streets to prove is not the case.

References: 

• Planning Officer’s report to BCC Development Control Committee on N/01514/03/FUL – 4 Dec 2003

• Planning Policy Guidance 17: Planning for Open Space, Sport and Recreation: ODPM Aug 2002

• Assessing needs and opportunities - companion guide Planning Policy Guidance 17: ODPM

This was the opening day of the new Victoria Jubilee Allotments - Saturday, 12 June 2010.

My son Richard took photos of people signing up for their plots on that happy day and I shall try to collate and publish these, while this blog features day to day activities on the VJA from a more personal point of view. If any gardener would like more information or any document, map or image relating to the VJA just ask me when you see me, or email me at s.j.baddeley@bham.ac.uk

January 2007: still waiting for plots

And at last we've got the plot

12 June 2010: Delith, Jeevan and Rachel wait to register for plots

Got the plot

This afternoon I borrowed the associations trolley, perfect for getting some heavy slabs down to the bottom of our plot as foundations for the shed. I've bought a hand earth tamper to help me flatten down the foundations. Lin who did all the plaka in the garden at 208 Democracy Street will come down on Sunday to start laying the slabs flat. My knees and hips are aching...

...and something, probably a pigeon, has eaten the better part of the broccoli we planted yesterday.

And there's Dr Vanley Burke at work on his plot across the way from Plot 14 where we are struggling - gamefully. "Can I take a photo, Vanley?" He nodded assent.

Afterword - 13/6/11: Contemplating the matter of weeds. I was having a chat on Monday morning with Delith who has a plot near ours and Rachel's. We've all got a variety of what constitute weeds on our plots.
"They look beautiful"
"Oh I know. In another setting make a meadow, full of the insect-filled diversity that's been so harmed by mono-cropping. I find it ironic that I'm striving to get rid of these on my allotment."
"There's a theory - no-dig gardening - that says you'll never get rid of weeds" said Delith
I mentioned an episode of Old Country  my stepfather broadcast on Channel 4 in the 1980s. Wandering along a downland slope he compared a ley grass monoculture - cocksfoot, ryegrass, white clover, with (at 09.58 on on a 14" clip) an enclosed piece of old common land full of flowers - thirty and more varieties of herbage.and the insects that live on them.

'Got the plot' - loss, rediscovery and restoration

Noon in the heart of Handsworth. An attentive assembly, many I know, listen to Adrian Stagg welcoming them to the first new allotments in Birmingham for thirty five years. Adrian and his colleague Mohamed from the City Council had stuck small numbered flags at the edge of each of the 79 plots on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments. Shortlisted applicants strolled around picking a flag from the plot of their choice; taking it back to the community hut to sign a contract and pay rent to September. At last. Some began digging and planting at once.

Opening day of the new Victoria Jubilee Allotments from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

The entrance to the Victoria Jubilee Allotments is to the east between plots 79 and 77, via the Parklands estate, entered off Hamstead Road via Victoriana Way, opposite a children's nursery and almost opposite Wellesbourne Road in Handsworth, Birmingham. On the west side of the plots the railway to Walsall runs through a cutting, to the south are the new playing fields - not ready yet - and to the north, Handsworth Park. The plots lie on a gentle north facing slope, overlooked on the east side by new houses. The gardeners' communal hut is close to the entrance between plots 25, 35 and 36.

Plan of plots on the VJA

From Nick Booth for the BBC: :-)

Losing the Plot - Midland Report BBC 2000 from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.
...and VJA slideshow including images of the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments and here are some of Birmingham photographer Luke Unsworth's images on YouTube taken in 2004 just before the site was cleared.

Luke Unsworth's images of the abandoned Victoria Jubilee in 2004

Originally the Victoria Jubilee Allotments were private - plots provided by the church to working men at the end of the 19th century, who joined together in a Provident Association or Friendly Society. Plots covered the whole 17 acre site. Clark Homes, then Westbury Homes, succeeded by Charles Church and finally Persimmon Homes persuaded the committee of the private plotholders to sell their plots and take the profits. Nick Booth's BBC film - Losing the Plot - documented this process in 2000, showing how allotment sites were being lost all over the country, as ageing plotholders, tempted by the cash offered by developers, sold up. Not all wanted this but they were overruled by a majority. The Victoria Jubilee Allotments Association being a Friendly Society, were prohibited by their constitution from selling plots, but the VJA Committee with the aid of Midland solicitors Challinors Lyon Clark changed themselves into a holding company which were able to sell the allotments and take the substantial profits that went with selling them for building.

The developer's initial masterplan involved covering the whole 17 acre site with unimaginative housing - a plan that met with prolonged, skillfully orchestrated and well argued opposition both locally and from green space defenders across Birmingham over nearly 15 years. Eventually the developers 'won', but resistance to the loss of the site helped Birmingham City Council negotiate a planning gain agreement (S106A) that saved two thirds of the site for greenspace, that would include the largest new allotment site in the UK since WW2, and the first new allotment site opened in Birmingham since 1975. The developer built private houses on just one third of the site. Under a planning application, finally approved in April 2004, two thirds of the site was allocated to playing fields and allotments paid for by the developer under a S106A - or planning gain agreement. The houses that were eventually built weren't ticky tacky, but handsome Victorian style houses laid out in a creative way, overlooking a restored Handsworth Park. A good few residents have taken up plots just outside their back door.

*** ***

THE ORIGINAL CASE FOR THE OLD VJA

In 1999 journalist Miles Blackley produced and directed a seven minute film for the BBC Community Programme Unit about our campaign to save the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA). Miles' brief included playing up the role of the individual activist in local campaigns which is why the 'I' word gets such an airing, belying the swell of local community support for our campaign to prevent or reduce building over the VJA.

Victoria Jubilee Allotments: BBC Private Investigations 1999

By 2003 we'd assembled, with the help of fellow campaigners, especially John Richfield, Liz England and our lawyer Phil Shiner, a cogent written case to Birmingham City Council planners, proposing that the whole 17 acres (6.8 hectares) of the original Victoria Jubilee Allotments to allotments be saved for allotments. This included making what I still believe to be an irrefutable evidence-based argument that local demand for allotments was enough to ensure that all original 240 plots would, if the site were properly maintained, be taken up, This bundle also contained information about just how much private plotholders no longer living in the area would be likely to make if the site was sold to a private developer, given the numbers of plots some had accrued to themselves and their families some of whom had never been near a plot, while allowing the site to become run-down (what we termed 'malign neglect' or 'constructive non-maintenance' [NB: HM govt publication links seem slow or not working - 14/06/10]); refusing to let plots to those asking for them, including me, while at the same time arguing publicly that they had no option but to sell because there was "no demand for plots".

The case for the VJA made by The Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG) (appendices in a separate file or via links below)

Appendix 1: Single Regeneration Budget (SRB6) showing VJA unit 8

Appendix 2: Edwardian 'fringe belt' - hard & soft surfaces in the city

Appendix 3: 3 views of the VJA site

Appendix 4: HAIG’s alternative proposal

Appendix 5: Survey of allotment demand

Appendix 6: VJA shareholdings

Appendix 7: VJA wildlife survey

Support in the Unitary Development Plan 1993 for allotments. Para. 3.62

Slides of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments

12 June - receipt for our plot on the VJA (photo: Richard Baddeley)

* * *
30 January 1972. Saville Inquiry into the events on Bloody Sunday delivered this Monday afternoon

Νῦν ἀπολύεις - Victoria Jubilee Allotments

At last!

Yes indeed! At last the waiting is over. Επιτέλους η αναμονή τελείωσε.

(Note: Adrian Stagg has reminded me that 'first come, first served basis' refers to those who added their names to a short list over the last year; not to anyone just turning up. This tends to strengthen a rumour that the Council's short list of those wishing to work plots on the VJA may already exceed the number of plots - a problem that tends to be resolved by halving plots and the inevitability of drop-outs)

We can turn from campaigning to digging, planting, growing and harvesting our own food. Last year Lin and I made a compact to share a plot with our neighbour Rachel Chiu and family, reckoning our diaries overlap enough to co-operates while being separate enough to allow a division of labour.

I spoke to Rachel this evening - just back from work, heading for a meet of the Handsworth Park Association. "See you Saturday", "What can we plant this time of year?" We pondered this. "We're away most of the summer" "But we're here until the end of August." "I think we can work on getting the soil right; perhaps get a shed put up, and plant early potatoes that'd be ready for spring 2010 along with turnips and...."

With the new allotments becoming available, it is to be hoped that the playing fields - two soccer, one cricket - plus children's playground plus changing pavilion that came with the 2004 Planning Gain Agreement (S106A), will be up and running this year (see Help Me Investigate).

2003 plan - N/01514/03/FUL - submitted to Birmingham City Council by Westbury Homes (enlarge)

E-mail from Clive Birch, Chair of Birmingham & District Allotments Association:

Been a long battle, am meeting tenants on 10th July with view to formation of allotment association.

Meeting at The Sons of Rest in Handsworth Park ~ 10 July 2010

E-mail from Adrian Stagg:

Simon, Morning. Its down to the plotholders now to make the site vibrant and hopefully one of the best in the City. We've done all we can to facilitate a high spec allotments site. Its there for people to enjoy and make their own. Adrian

E-mail from Stephen Hartland, Chair of Birmingham's Victorian Society

Well done Simon. What a way to celebrate HM's official birthday.

E-mail from Betty at Walsall Road Allotments to whom I'd passed the news:

Dear Simon. No, I hadn't heard the good news - congratulations! How many plots will be available on Saturday, and do you have a waiting-list? I hope all goes well for you and that lots of prospective plotholders turn up. Betty

E-mail from an old friend:

At last indeed. Simon was a(n even) young(er) man when he started campaigning for this development 20 years ago! And along the way prevented the site becoming entirely housing. Anyway, megathanks from myself and no doubt several dozen others for his foresight and industry, and likewise in respect of the adjoining park which he did so much to get restored, even though of course others have had a hand in making these things happen. Robin

..and another, from Zarina Bhatia:

Wow! This was just yesterday, I shall visit the site on one of my walks to the Park soon. What achievement for our so pluralistic community of Handsworth! BRAVO, Simon!

and from The Stirrer:

fantastic - well done. Adrian Goldberg

www.thestirrer.com

From Karen Leach, Coordinator Localise West Midlands:

fantastic news! Sorry we (bfoe) weren't much help towards the end but brilliant to hear your persistence paid off! best wishes. Karen

From Basil Hylton, Handsworth Cricket Club, long term successful campaigner for sport in Handsworth and beyond:

Hi Simon, Congratulations. The community owes you a debt of gratitude for your hard tenacious slog at this matter. Well done as gardeners can now look to securing their plots and to the fruits of their labour. Wish that the issue around cricket was going well. But then, that is a long story. You take care, and all the best. Basil

From our old childminder, Pauline Gallagher:

May the grass be green and the plots be vibrant- Well done Simon !!!!

From Ano Korakiana:

Hi Simon. Well done on the allotmen'ts side of the fence. Enjoy your digging and your fruits of hard labour. Mark.

I phoned Paul Peacock in the Pennines. He reminded me it would be tricky to get seed potatoes, but try Pentland Javelins. some turnips. lettuce, beetroot...

Previous air photo of the site before building - the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments

Air photo two years ago showing rough location of the new VJA

Nick Booth's 2000 documentary 'Losing the Plot', a BBC Midlands Report about the midway stage of the campaign to save the VJA

X-ref: Democracy Street on 'the politics of urban green space'

* * * *

I saw this pilot logo recently - for the highest quality olive oil from Corfu - a product in mind, not yet in production. I liked the Septinsular lion against Corfu's verdant green, coach green, British racing green - plus the yellow of the lion like sun shining through a bottle of oil:

* * * Meanwhile sheep shearing and wool preparation in Ano Korakiana....and I 've been pointed by Aris - who designed the logo above - towards the work of Maria Couroucli...and - scrolling down this list of research projects supported by the Latsis Foundation I see this work on local memory by Helen Hristopoulou of the Ionian University on Urban Collective Memory through Time and Space:

Urban memory is a form of collective memory developed about a place through time. Generations pass memories about their birthplaces to one another mainly through verbal narrations and testimonials of significant events occurred in the past, usually pertaining to a restricted audience of family members or members of similar small social groups. As a result, such valuable memories are isolated, not interacting with each other to designate collective memories, eventually fading away as time goes by. The project will provide a database for documenting and preserving collections of memories. Such a database will be then utilized to issue representations of Corfu memories, offering an educational environment for children and pupils. Finally, the project will offer a web-based application environment to disseminate recorded Corfu memories in terms of interactive 3D Maps, in a web context employing various semantic tags and subject descriptors to facilitate end-users to browse urban collective memory through time and space dimensions.

How they influence me

Losing the Plot - Midland Report BBC 2000

Nick Booth has been a great influence. His documentary - Losing the Plot - was aired on the BBC in the early days of our campaign in Handsworth for the Victoria Jubilee Allotments (VJA) - a local action to save green space from building development that began in 1999 and continues. A planning gain agreement - S106A - was negotiated on the VJA in 2003 and formally permitted by Birmingham City Council in 2004 - N/01514/03/FUL. It allowed the applicant - at that time Westbury Homes - to build houses on a third of the site in return for playing fields and 80 new allotment plots. I recall feeling that after a long fight we'd lost - but the new VJA when opened will I've been told, be the largest new municipal allotments site opened in the UK since the second world war.

Plots on the VJA site were supposed to become available in 2008, but did not, then 2009 and then this year. Recession has been the excuse as well as legal complications surrounding the handing over of the land to the ownership of Birmingham City Council. After continued delays and promises the council allotments officer - Adrian Stagg - told us, a few weeks ago, that plots will be available under licence from the current developer - Persimmon Homes - this June.

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE VICTORIA JUBILEE ALLOTMENTS AND TO GET ON THE SHORT LIST FOR A PLOT WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE PHONE ADRIAN STAGG ON 0121 303 3038 allotments@birmingham.gov.uk

In the film the VJA case arises at 03.28, 07.14, 15.15 and 17.44. Nick Booth moved from a successful career in broadcasting shortly after making this documentary about allotments - the basis for our continued friendship - and has now become a significant presence on the internet as a freelance journalist, mentor and campaigner for the spread of grassroot politics (see also Be Vocal, Help Me Investigate and Nick's page on Twitter)

* * *

On a chill rainy Saturday morning we were litter-picking in Black Patch Park and nearby streets. Most litter was the usual casually discarded beverage bottles, plastic bags, crisp and sweet wrappers. There was the detritus of more organised activity - bedsteads, guttering, plastic strippings from filched copper wire strewn over a heap of crystallised roofing material. I'm hesitant, often sceptical about 'compacts', 'partnerships', 'empowerment of communities', 'communities of practice' - the argot of enabling networks - but there were quite a set of us working together - Friends of Black Patch Park, two PCSOs, Zaida from Midland Heart who organised food in the meeting room of the houses they manage off Murdock Road next to the park, some residents of those homes with whom, until now, we've never made successful contact and a few from Sandwell Council's environmental services. I brought Oscar along, happily sitting in the plastic cycle pannier until I could let him rove. Carl Murphy, freelance photographer, came to get pics for stories that may appear in local papers and Midland Heart's glossies.

Litter-picking: Murdock Road near Black Patch Park

* * *

Another influence. My stepfather's biographer is the writer and journalist Paul Peacock. Since he wrote about Jack we've stayed in touch. Paul has continued a sinuous career, becoming dexterous with the grammar of the blogosphere, popularising issues close to my and many other's hearts and minds.

As well as authoring books, Paul and Diana Peacock, , have been running City Cottage on the web, offering guidance on cooking, farming, self-sufficiency, including butchery, bee-keeping, smoking and curing, and sausage making - a portal to The Internet Gardener, the Mirror Gardening section, and Home Farmer, linked and accompanied by pithy podcasts streamed by Grow Your Own Channel with connection to allotments and the low-impact living initiative. I subscribe to Paul and Diana's circular:

We have moved house and right in the middle of it we fancied something homely: cottage pie .You never know how stressful moving house is - completely tiring, disabling, disorientating but completely wonderful. The vinegar factory we used to look at has been replaced by the Pennines and the factory, the tenth most polluting factory in the UK, has been replaced by hundreds of tradesmen and artisans, lovely bakers, butchers by the score. Where we used to live there was only one proper butchers serving around 30 000 people - the rest were supermarkets. Here there are four in the village, serving only around 5000 people. Bliss!

* * *

Alan who has a slightly deranged Milligan way with words, sends his latest report with photo on the state of the external stairs-balcony project in Ano Korakiana - what he calls the Simlim pass:

I had just finished the lower landing of the Simlim pass and was working around the upper level when the black and white cater-ban insurgence was detected and was making its way down the Simlim pass. Before I could set up reinforcements, it had struck a devastating attack on the lower landing base with some collateral damage to the steps above them making its escape - all most cat-like - into the flowers. Workers sent in to make good the damage before nightfall. I had to return to base camp for rest and supplies to body, hoping that the cater-ban won't make a night time raid! Kids and cats on working backs no room to slack.

It's nice to see the mouldings Alan's putting on the edge of each step and how much of the little window still shows, but regarding the 'cater-ban insurgence' I'm wondering it there's something in the water of Corfu. There was another bloke - Edward something who spent time there....and became quite quare...

** ** **

The Mayors of Corfu, Paxos and the Community Council of Diapontia - the north western islands - have written to the Prime Minister opposing being united, under the Kallicrates Plan,into one municipality. Back in March Ioannis Bravis made a case for three new authorities - one in the north west including the Diapontian Islands, a second in the south up to Benitses and Lake Korission, with a third key council containing the biggest concentration of settlements and economic drivers covering an area from Kassiopi and the north west down the east coast to Benitses over to Lake Korission and back up the Ropa Valley to Paleokastritsa centred on Corfu Town. Papandreou's one council including all Corfu plus Paxos up to Diapontian Erikoussa will - suggests the latest letter - dilute the potential of the 'concentrated' area suggested by Ioannis Bravi, and fail to provide the local services and local focus needed to develop the special concerns of the smaller, more distant, less populated and unique smaller islands. It's ironical that by including Paxos with Corfu and its satellite islands to the north west, the Kallicrates proposal for the area matches the inflammatory proposal of Lord High Commissioner Sir John Young during the latter years of the British Protectorate for Britain to colonise Paxos and Corfu, ceding the remaining Ionian islands to the Greek kingdom.

*** ***

Jim Potts is concerned about the future of cycle lanes on Corfu.

...after listening to Greek friends and watching tonight's Logos-Anti logos programme on the Corfu TV Channel, I came to realise that the project had not been properly planned, but was submitted to the Municipal Council for comment and possible amendment only 24 hours before the cut off date for submission to the European Union. Will all this funding go to waste? Was the initial study done by people with sufficient experience? (Corfu blues 31 May 2010)

Elias Valaris wrote an op-ed on cycling in Corfu - not just recreational cycling - in Corfu Press (Greek version - Να κερδίσουμε το στοίχημα της μετακίνησης με ποδήλατο) on 19 May.

Το διασκεδαστικό βέβαια, είναι ότι πλέον ψάχνουμε τρόπους και ευκαιρίες όλοι στην εφημερίδα μας να χρησιμοποιήσουμε περισσότερο τα ποδήλατά μας κι αυτό μπορώ να σας πω ότι εκτός από αναζωογονητικό μας προσφέρει και μια νέα επαφή φιλίας μεταξύ φίλων και συναδέλφων.

The fun, of course, is that now we are looking ways and opportunities for everyone in our newspaper to use more of our bikes...I can tell you that as well as being healthy, cycling offers new contact between friends and colleagues. Besides liberating the bicycle, we are assured of finding a different Corfu hidden...beneath the routine of everyday life.

Celebrating the bicycle in this way, still seems bizarre to many. Despite frustrations and costs, most people embrace cars as essential; in many cases, as objects of desire; part of the aspirational vector of the times - especially among those whose parents, and certainly grandparents had no choice but to walk, ride bicycles and even donkeys. The arrival of cyclists with attitude; cyclists who actually want to cycle instead of driving, who in some cases have divorced their car is shocking and irritating...and when these cyclists start campaigning for the removal of cars from many streets, from whole areas of the city and for more and more restrictions on those things that made cars a means of tapping into unprecedented independence and freedom, taking over the highway, lobbying for speed limits, traffic calming and cycle lanes....well, no wonder drivers begin to feel that even behind the wheel of 2000 kilos of metal they've somehow become victims. Before year-round cycling can increase in popularity, there's a universe of embedded values fed by sophisticated marketing to be unpicked. It will take a long time, even with escalating fuel prices, for the majority to prise themselves from their beloved cars. Physical changes in road design seem like impositions in an autodependent world.

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. H.G. Wells

* * *

A very public admission of corruption reported in a Kathimerini's editorial today: 'Into Corruption's Labyrinth' - a confession to a Parliamentary Select Committee by a close colleague of ex-Transport Minister Tasos Mantelis that his Minister took money from Siemens as a bribe - formally described as election sponsorship - to award them a major IT contract in 1997 while Mantelis was a member of Costas Simitis’s PASOK government. The bribe money was partly used, to fund Mantelis' son's studies at Columbia University - see 'the horror'- how corruption works. Linda remarked of Papandreou "He really is trying to sort out this problem' This after I'd told her about Corfu MP Angela Gerekou's resignation over her entertainer husband's falsified tax claims