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Tea is a traditional part of a cricket

Will Covid-19 kill the traditional cricket tea?

Sandwiches, cakes, crisps, maybe some fruit and a good old English cuppa. Summer would be nothing without cricket – and cricket would be nothing without the traditional cricket tea. Or would it?

Since time immemorial, it seems, a tea has been produced by volunteers. It is gratefully consumed in a convivial break between two sides going out to bat on a beautifully manicured village green pitch.

This has been depicted in any number of television dramas, from an occasional story line to a full backdrop to conversations in Outside Edge in the mid-1990s.

One tea making company even ran “The Great Cricket Tea Challenge” featuring former England captain Michael Vaughan, in 2014.

Read More »Will Covid-19 kill the traditional cricket tea?
City buses

Councils switching to electric waste vehicles show leadership

When Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his “build, build, build” speech this summer, he mentioned wanting to introduce 4,000 ‘carbon zero buses’, to address the climate crisis.

There are several London bus routes which run on non-fossil based fuel, as he well knows from his time as mayor of our capital city.

His recent speech didn’t extend the sentiment to refuse vehicles, however, which was a shame. Nearly a year ago, Westminster council struck a deal with Veolia, their waste recycling contractor, to introduce electric vehicles.

That was five months after the City of London Corporation vowed in April 2019 to become the first UK council to run a fully electric fleet.

Read More »Councils switching to electric waste vehicles show leadership

Help put end to bad cycle signage via survey

Whether you are an experienced cyclist or new to “active travel”, it is worth taking part in the Surrey County Council Covid-19 transport map.

Plenty of people will have found – or rediscovered – cycling in particular since Covid-19 lockdown began. Some people will have done so for pleasure and leisure, others making a firmer commitment to reach work or schools via cycling, or walking more.

Anyone who now takes a bike out for shopping, with children, their family or just to travel from A to B should consider filling in the survey. It gives people the chance not only to put dots on a map with a suggestion for improvements, but to like, support, or disagree with other suggestions.

While it is Surrey wide, it is divided into boroughs. Would you like an extra crossing near a school on a busy road? Would you like better signage? More cycle lanes? What would make cycling or walking safer?

Read More »Help put end to bad cycle signage via survey
Aerosols are recycled in some boroughs, not all

A single Surrey authority could end recycling inconsistency

Devolved Government. It’s an interesting argument, all round. Should Scotland be allowed to have independence? How much authority or “independence” do they already have? Is the United Kingdom important and how does it function with separate regional countries making their own decisions?

It’s not possible to answer all those questions here, but a few news stories this week prompt a few questions. For example, how efficient are we as a nation – with national, regional, county or borough authorities – at making efficient or effective decisions? Don’t forget parish councils, either!


Read More »A single Surrey authority could end recycling inconsistency
PG Tips changed its tea bags to biodegradable

Big stick for single carrots wrapped in plastic

At the start of this month, I asked the major supermarket chains via Twitter what innovations they were putting in place for Plastic Free July.

Many of the major supermarkets have commitments to reducing plastic under their sustainability policies, as outlined on their websites.

But none of them responded, despite their pledges on sustainability. So, I concluded, they didn’t even take advantage of the annual Plastic Free July campaign to show how their commitments on plastics might be working. No innovations to announce: no plastic free aisles; no removal of plastic on eggs, for example.

Meanwhile, a Dutch supermarket chain was shown up by a consumer for wrapping individual carrots in plastic to “protect them”.

Read More »Big stick for single carrots wrapped in plastic
Rubbish outside allotment

Litter tossers have no respect – for area or themselves

It is hard to know which is worse: hundreds of discarded piece of litter, scattered over a reasonably wide area, or dumping rubbish in a concentrated spot, otherwise known as fly-tipping.

One, at best, involves a negligent slip of an item out of a hand, pocket or perhaps a vehicle; the other is a completely deliberate act to avoid disposing of items responsibly, perhaps at cost.

Both types of rubbish disposal could be deliberate, cigarettes or crisp packets flicked from cars for example. And both types of littering have been noted in the Earlswood area in recent days.

One hopes that the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council’s Joint Enforcement Team, whose attention has been brought to the pile of debris outside the entrance to the Earlswood allotments, will find evidence to point to the culprit.

Read More »Litter tossers have no respect – for area or themselves
An old building in Redhill has been repurposed for modern use

Cherish historic buildings: they can’t go in museums

Our heritage has been in the news recently in various ways. One of the Black Lives Matter protests resulted in the removal of statues celebrating people of the past whose money was made from slavery. The National Trust, and other organisations, have started reopening their historic homes and gardens.

These points are at different ends of the spectrum, but linked. History brings us lessons of evil as well as celebrations of good. It is important to learn about them, either way. Recent events have highlighted that more needs to be written in our school history books about certain characters and their flaws.

Our curriculums are packed with histories of World Wars One and Two. Many people will have learned of Henry VIII, Martin Luther King, or Ghandi. Did you learn of Martin Luther too? As a protestant revolutionary, he’s central to Henry VIII’s story.

Do the depths of those stories evade us or resonate? Few people in history were cleaner than clean, if we choose to stop and study them. Few modern heroes are, either. Many have some vice by modern standards.

Read More »Cherish historic buildings: they can’t go in museums

How lockdown has instilled a sense of localism

A favourite jacket’s zip broke. So did a one on a plastic, but reusable, cover on a small greenhouse. What should I do? What would you do?

One option was to throw them away, to buy afresh – online – and keep major clothing and gardening chains in business. Another option was to mend.

Neither needed fixing urgently. The jacket was for days that are colder than summer. The greenhouse has done its work this year, nurturing seedlings that are now planted out. It would seem shameful to discard not just its plastic but metal structure, just because the zip had failed.

So I waited, through lockdown, for a local mender to reopen. I took both items to them – the greenhouse request being an unusual one – and asked them to fit new zips.

Read More »How lockdown has instilled a sense of localism

The real Reigate solution: pedestrianise the High Street

When the community recycling centre at Earlswood reopened after lockdown and there were long traffic queues, was the solution to get rid of the recycling centre? No, of course not. After McDonalds’ drive through in Salfords reopened and there were long queues for that too, was the restaurant removed? Don’t be silly.

But when temporary cycle lanes were introduced in Reigate Town Centre last Saturday morning – and were instantly blamed for long traffic queues – were they removed? Or did the delayed drivers think about taking alternative routes instead, another time?

They didn’t get much thinking time. These cycle lanes were part of the Active Travel funding given by central government – the Department for Transport – to Surrey. This was intended to improve cycle access and walkways. In a nationwide scheme, councils were asked to bid for money to set up temporary improvements. But the three-week experiment was halted on Monday night, after three days. By which time there was very little traffic to be impeded.

Read More »The real Reigate solution: pedestrianise the High Street