Counting the cost of counting park flowers

There were five or six men per team back in the day and did 500 bins a week. Now they have two loaders doing 1,500 to 2,000 a day. Gina Lollobrigida actress, Bill Withers, singer-songwriter, Prince Michael of Kent Jenny Seagrove, actress, Neil Morrissey, actor, Henri Leconte, former tennis player, Jo Whiley, DJ, JUST been for a walk around our glorious Greenhead Park’s beautiful flower beds but stopped to watch a group of people around one of these.

The two men had measuring wheels and they appeared to be counting the number of flowers.

I had to stop them and ask what was going on. They were measuring the size of the beds and counting the number of flowers in each as I was told they had a surplus this year and wanted to get it right next time.

My question - why does it take four people to do this simple task? Reply, we are training the two young ladies! Another example of money wasting.

They may all have been better occupied inspecting the town centre and finding a way to turn that disgrace into somewhere people would be happy to shop in. But being as they were from Kirklees Council I won’t be holding my breath.

Will anything be done with SMART meters are now being heavily promoted - see the twopage advertisement in Wednesday’s paper.

But two of the key features are being overlooked. Once meters are installed it becomes possible to charge for energy according to the time of day it is used. So, at times of high demand the price can increase to try and limit or shift demand to other times of the day. This is part of the plan known as demand side management. It will also be possible to disconnect your supply remotely; just the press of a key or click of a mouse is all it will take.

Changing supplier will be simpler it is claimed, but the problems tend to be administrative rather than technical. Smart meters will do nothing to improve this – remember the initial roll out that had meters that ceased to function if you changed supplier. Smart meters actually made changing supplier more problematic.

The power companies and government are imposing a poorly specified technology on us that will do little for the consumer and they have managed to get the consumer to pay for it. All the intended benefits are being heavily canvassed and the potential problems ignored – no doubt the usual “lessons will be learned” as major issues arise.