Made In Preston – the blog

Blackburn council have distributed 59,000 newspapers outlining their objections to Prestons Tithebarn scheme.   I was impressed that, on BBC Look North, Blackburns council leader seemed to make Preston appear like a major centre that would become even more dominant in the region. It made the Tithebarn sound even more desirable from Prestons viewpoint and made me more in favour.

It did say that Blackburn was having a £66m shopping centre built but they were obviously unimpressed that Prestons was £700m, although the money isn’t all on shopping. I think if the tables were reversed I would be wanting more spent in my own place rather than preventing investment elsewhere. This area is quite delicately placed being the last point of major development south of Glasgow, 200miles away. Quite often areas on the fringe retreat during a recession as money gets pulled back into the core so to be objecting to investment sounds like a bit of an own goal. We would hope for a broader world view.

Heysham nuclear power stations are 20 miles from Preston.  Lancaster is 5 miles away from them and on the route of the prevailing wind. I’ve never particularly  felt threatened by their proximity.  Should we be worried on the grounds of safety that a new station is planned?

The strange thing is that if you think about it enough you might be worried. If you don’t think about it much it seems to fall into the category of one of those things in life. You might be more at risk if you live under a flight path or next to a railway line or busy road. Yet danger doesn’t seem to be a factor in objections to these.

In the worst case Lancashire might be uninhabitable for 1000yrs and many might die of strange illnesses. Yet the collision of a  jet carrying nuclear weapons over Preston or a meteor falling might be as likely.

You might argue that other forms of energy will do the job or that better insulation and efficiency would cut the need for power.  Forecasts say that our power demand will continue to increase and that we’ll be importing most of our fuel. My own opinion is that the government target should be to reduce the amount of power needed so the UK is almost  independant of overseas fuel, not to just use less fossil fuel.

How much power do I use. My car, £900 of petrol. The house about £1000. How much would it cost to halve my power bill. Sell the car, no thanks.  I started thinking about this and realised it’s a big subject and I’m not going to do the research. All these electric trains and heated work buildings, will they only operate on windy days or when the tide is going out. I thought not. Then again we don’t want nasty wind turbines spoiling the view, gas storage exploding beneath us, tidal barrages silting the estuary, coal polluting the atmosphere, nuclear fuel leaking into the water table, liquid gas shipping dangers, at least not in my back yard.

I’d still go for more insulation particularly on new build, who can complain about reducing bills over the long term. Property is priced on what you can get for it, not on what it costs to build.

Builders are saying they want a lot of notice to bring in new requirements. Well I’d say all new plans put forward from now are to have a maximum of £1/sq.m of floor fuel bill p.a. and this will be reduced.  We’re in a recession so there aren’t many new plans. Unemployed architects can work this out.  This is low tech stuff not the proverbial rocket science. The regulations will make it that this is a peculiarly British requirement so, strangely, only British jobs for British workers will be created.

Overall I’ve always favoured nuclear power although recently I’ve been less certain. It appears suddenly everyone is saying it’s the solution, so probably it’s not.  How certain are supplies of uranium if everyone is building them?  Neither do I trust the government to make good decisions as there seems to be a lack of wisdom and foresight in the governing bodies of the UK.  Also watching Nimbies clutching straws is an irritant, but you can’t help thinking it could be me.  Arguments about safety and storage of fuel need to answered by extreme safety measures and some good technology. On the other hand I think we should use coal as well and it doesn’t need to be Persil white, there has to be some compromise.

So back to Heysham, it looks like its coming. It’s probably French. That brings me to another debate about most of our industry being controlled from overseas. Yet many don’t want the EU to control us. Seems we left the back door open.  I’ll save that.

Interesting programme on BBC last night. John Harris a Mancunian living in the south travelled to Yorkshire, Godalming and Cambridge to find out if there was a north south divide. Apparently people in the south don’t recognise such a thing but that seems to demonstrate their insularity.   People in the north recognise it but seemed to be involved in small project lower return activity, or blindly smug like in Harrogate.

One researcher commented that the north had its time when industry was a force but now that services and intellectual products are prominent with trade to Europe there is a natural drift to the south that is only inhibited by planning laws.  This is something that I’d sympathise with as I’ve wondered what is the purpose of the north of England?  It no longer has a differentiating factor like textiles or shipbuilding.  Trade no longer mainly points across the Atlantic so the north west is on the wrong side. Theoretically an intellectual product can spawn anywhere there is a group of like minded people. However being close to a market and a community of like people, e.g. Cambridge, gives an advantage. Only Manchester in the region has this.

Also how many in the population are capable of doing these jobs?  The textile industry employed mainly manual workers so what are they going to do. It does seem that sources of intellect like universities need to spawn local businesses. Government jobs need to spread around. Fast communications like High Speed Rail and very fast broadband needs to be built into the whole area to keep it above water. On the other hand if you’re retired like me it is less hectic but we need to make work for our younger ones.