Conservation Area Questionnaire - Your Views

[spiderman]

Nick B, So....? What's your point? We all got this info + questionnaire through our door.

Personally, it's all mumbo jumbo to me.

[NickB]

.
What do you mean , what is my point? I don't have a point. (OMG - NickB confesses he is pointless . . . I can see the next post now)

The Community Council asked me to post this on the community website website so people in these communities who hadn't got the questionnaire for whatever reason would have the chance to download it here and make a response should they want to. Its a community thing and this is a community website.

It seems very straightforward and comprehensive to me and is a chance for residents in these areas to have a say in how they are managed in the future. I would have thought people would welcome it.

If it is mumbo jumbo to you perhaps you should try reading it again when you are sober

- NickB

[spiderman]

I thought there were other parts of the forum for such news items and that this Chat part was for an exchange of views. Excuse me if I misunderstood your previously clear subdivision of the site.

At least you could have introduced the item by saying that you had been asked to regurgitate the circular.

As to the questionnaire and the Conservation Area concept, I think the latter is a flawed concept and a trendy and bureaucratic nonsense. The former is a robotic local sop to it. Why not just act to conserve all areas and to balance "progress" with environmental concerns in an informal common-sense sort of way?

As to your silly accusation that I'm drunk, is this the level of argument you aspire to?

HIC!

[NickB]

.
I have often posted Community Council notices here as a lot of people dont visit the front page of the site or the Community Council page. I will continue to do so from time to time.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. You either participate in the consultation exercise in the hope of having some influence at a local level or Argyll and Bute do whatever they feel like. The CAs already exist with all the associated planning restrictions etc - this is peoples' chance, however limited, to have a say.

TO suggest - as you appear to be - that participating only encourages a flawed concept could be seen as naive - not participating will achieve nothing. There is plenty of space on the questionnaire for you to expound your views at some length after all.

Your gallus blend of cynicism and idealism is ideal for a superhero but perhaps not so useful when it comes to more mundane issues

- NickB

[spiderman]

OK, Nick, you play a benevolent God on this site and obviously can do what you want with it. I still think your original unedited post was neither clear nor in the appropriate place. But, as you imply, who cares? More importantly, the folly of CAs is exemplified by the fact that this questionnaire applies only to Ellenabeich and Easdale at the exact time that huge issues of conservation are needing resolved in the other parts of this community? For example, the issue of the new sewage works, with its massive excavations and implications, a planned highly visible outfall pipe above-ground and above low-tide mark in Balvicar Bay and with its pumping stations and treatment works blighting the landscape and quite possibly not workng, potentially causing new environmental problems in the sound and bay whille smelling like only an island's-worth of sewage can? (Will your wee boat enjoy being surrounded by plankton bloom?) Or what about the new unsympathetic housing developments planned? What's the special beef about Ellenabeich and Easdale at this particular point in time? The principles of sound planning should apply to all of our area and to all areas and should not be bureaucratised and converted into ecobabble, causing endless paperwork, Management Plans, legislation, jobs for the boys and needing specialists to understand all the wording, rules and regulations. Stuff the bureaucracy and let common sense prevail! Look at the environmental issues raised regularly on this site over the years - these are what the community cares about - yet here we're being asked whether houses on Easdale should have plastic window frames! Holy Moses! KAPPPPPOOOOOWWWWW!!

[NickB]

.

Grant Me The Serenity

To Accept The Things I Cannot Change

Courage To Change The Things I Can

And The Wisdom To Know The Difference

- NickB

[spiderman]

Wise words, Nick! That's why my questionnaire went straight into the dustbin. But I bet I'll be able to requote your words back to you with knobs on at some time in the future!!

[longshanks]

"NickB confesses he is pointless"

No; he's got Rubha Sassunaich....a delightful and appropriate place (given his original nationality) to moor his boat and take a photograph.

I agree with Spiderperson. The whole sham consultation process as exemplified by this questionnaire is a total waste of time. Asking such stupid questions as:

25. Should unauthorised development be identified and rectified through enforcement proceedings?

Doh! Of course! If they weren't authorised then they're illegal !

The process is a typical example of big brother brainwashing conning the inhabitants of this island into thinking that we have an influence over what will be imposed on us. Of course we don't.

Mine's in the bin, and not the stupid paper recycling bin either which we all know goes to landfill seeing as the nearest commercial recycling plant is two and a half hours diesal drive away.

Long Leg (watching cricket, not the olympics, by choice)

[NickB]

[spiderman]

Nick B, I think your recourse to cartoons, the odd insult and borrowed quotations probably indicates that you know you're beaten and may even secretly be in general agreement. My expressing a dislike of environmental bureaucracy and highlighting some other local concerns isn't "cynical" in my book (whereas your avoidance of these issues and replying only with insults and cynical cartoons is indeed "cynical").

Also, lest you forget, here's what you said in a recent thread about newcomers to our island in the context of the local CA:

OK, some immigrants are a bit annoying. There are two sorts.

Firstly there are those who want to freeze the place at the moment in time they arrived - perfect now, any change is bad, no more development.

Then there are those who are the opposite, who want to change everything so it is like the place they have just come from. These latter are the ones who campaign for street lights and traffic lights on the bridge.

Anyone think Nick B isn't always so Godlike and can be quite a wee cynic himself?

[NickB]

You forgot to add the next sentence:

There are many though who come here and simply fit in and make friends - with old and new residents alike. Seil is not a time warp - it is in a state of change like everywhere else on the planet, and if you can't deal with that then you have a problem that is I am afraid not going to go away.

To quote part of my statement only is deliberately misleading. To imply that the part you did quote was in any way a comment on the conservation areas is equally incorrect. Have you considered a career with the Daily Mail?

I have no idea how the CAs came about historically, nor do I have any personal axe to grind either way as Balvicar isn't in one. However, I am surprised that so many of you who DO live there are throwing the questionnaire in the bin - it will achieve nothing. Surely far better if you feel strongly to fill the form in - there are many boxes for extended answers - letting the Community Council know exactly how you feel.

It's like voting - not turning up shows apathy, spoiling your ballot paper shows something altogether different . . . no-one is going to take any notice of your binned questionnaires.

I've had enough of this subject now. In future, when I post Community Council notices here as public information the thread is going to be locked to prevent irrelevant and unnecessary replies. Start your own threads if you want to engage in a discussion as to whether or not the CAs should exist.


- NickB

[spiderman]

Nick B, I suspect that you're something of a control freak! Always huffing and locking things and folk out of blogs when you get needled after rising to the bait....

By the way, I don't live in the area of the CA in question so don't see what right I have to contribute to this particular Management Plan, even if the questionnaire wasn't a bueaucratic nonsense. Thanks for the unnecessary lecture on voting and democracy though. Quite pompous.

Re your other point, the Community Council will know exactly how I feel if they have the wit to read these blogs. Which raises the question of why on earth the Community Council does not appear to take part in its own community's forum for exchange of views. Surely this is something they should do?

As to the Daily Mail jibe, what an insult! I'm sorry you didn't like your categorisation of "annoying" "immigrants" being quoted (embarrassing wasn't it?) and I apologise for not quoting the whole half page of your entry in the CA thread. Wanted to keep it brief and pertinent.

No doubt you'll now consider using your much enjoyed controlling powers to block me from the Chat as you did or threatened to do so unfairly to nice old Longshanks?

Calm down, fella, and "grant yourself some serenity"........

[NickB]

I'm sorry you didn't like your categorisation of "annoying" "immigrants" being quoted (embarrassing wasn't it?)

Not even slightly embarrassing, just quoted out of context, made to seem as though I had said it wrt the conservation area issue - which I hadn't - and failed to mention that the next sentence said that this was a minority.

So - I've forwarded your CV to the Daily Mail.

As for pompous - well, pot and kettle spring to mind. I feel a bout of arachnophobia coming on.

- N

[Pentlandpirate]

This thread makes it perfectly obvious who is community minded and who isn't. They're always the first to complain and the last to do anything about it.

[spiderman]

Retrospective changing of the thread - another bit of control freakery. Unethical really.

PP, you've got the wrong end of the stick.

[khartoumteddy]

Questionairres are all very well but

The interpretation of the answers is usually done by the

PILLOCK EMPLOYED BY THOSE WITH MOST TO GAIN

OK so I`m slightly cynical

TEDDY

[Jones]

As usual the critics are having their say without coming up with anything better. Yawn...zzzzzzzz

[spiderman]

Hardly a very constructive remark, yawner J. Just check it out before you pretend to be cleverly bored:

What's not positive about my previous suggestions?
e.g. "Why not just act to conserve all areas and to balance "progress" with environmental concerns in an informal common-sense sort of way? " "The principles of sound planning should apply to all of our area and to all areas and should not be bureaucratised"

And what's not sensible about suggesting that those who live outside the CA should leave answering the questionnaire to those who live inside it? Or that the uncertainties about the new sewage works should take precedence at this particular point in time?

Jones, I'm sure you're better than this - it's so easy to sit on the sidelines and sneer and contribute nothing but yawns - but why don't you try saying something relevant?

[Jones]

Plenty of room on the questionnaire for you to make such comments.

Seems to me you'd rather make them as a criticism for us all to see here than in a response that you wouldn't get any publicity for. Well done!

[spiderman]

Sorry, I just thought that this chat site was for expressing and exchanging opinions. If you want to limit your contributions to yawning, fair enough.