How it’s done

Every so often, Nightwatchman is asked- ‘How is it that a prosperous leading Town north east of Birmingham can decline ungracefully into Sutton Coldfield 2008?'

The answer is to be demonstrated in glorious living colour over the next six months. Allegedly.

Regular reader will know that Sutton is about to be subjected to a log awaited redesign of the Town Centre. Councillors are about to appoint a consultant to come up with a vision. Serious vision will inform a blueprint. Developer will build to blueprint.

It is, of course, necessary for this exercise to take place in the unforgiving glare of unforgiving public.

Councillors commonly prefer to be somewhere else when the pellet hits the liquid. One alternative device is the erection of a willing heat shield.

Skilled players will find respected local dignitary and place the findings before them. Dignitary conducts fevered investigation among the hoi polloi. And lo, comes up with a measured decision not a million miles from original concept which is fully endorsed by something south of three per cent of the population thought to have a useful voice.

Reader will understand that M/s Allison, Chairperson of the Civic Society possesses exactly the clout which could deliver a result precisely to the taste of the Councillors.

The Society Web Site does not inspire expectations of imaginative approaches to cumulative problems. The dread word conservation is at the heart of the mission.

Perhaps however, perhaps the Councillors are wedded to an exciting, ground breaking, trend bucking solution tailored to break the dead hand firmly attached to a wheezing town stuck somewhere between 1919 and 1937.

And then again…………..


Nightwatchman