Our public parks are such special places
MAX McMurdo
is correct in his description of the value of our public parks during this virus era.
More people have been enjoying the parks in this ‘new normal.’
And as I stated in my Examiner letter
Claudius Loudon instigated the public parks in the early 1850s. The parks are a noble and precious thing to be treasured. Created by gardeners who strived for ever raising standards of horticulture – and what profession wouldn’t want to?
Gardeners who ran the gardens of the gentry were known as ‘Head Gardeners.’
The gardeners who ran the new public parks were called ‘Superintendents’ who were very respected people on first name terms with the Mayor and the town Clerk. This relationship even survived the 1974 creation of Kirklees metro council. But in 1986 the superintendents who had maintained high standards for so long were abolished and replaced by regional ‘Managers’ with a ‘Mr Big’ in Huddersfield – this was the start of the decline of the parks, it has had very little to do with a series of cuts as Mr McMurdo indicated in his letter. Then came the closure of the Bradley nurseries closed by Kirklees in 2016 “urgently as the site was needed” this was a mere few weeks after a nursery gardener had been presented with a long service award by the now chief executive Jacqui Gedman – the nursery greenhouses still stand to this day?
The real reason for the decline is a lack of interest in keeping and raising the standards of the parks by the managers. For instance,
Kirklees parks had two highly skilled men who ran horticultural educational training courses, (one of whom has his own gardening radio show on radio Leeds) now there are no such people.
As I have stated Loudon said education more than anything else would improve gardening.
Now Kirklees have announced £5m plans for a garden street, which is welcome.
But the parks themselves and the gardeners should be given greater finances to reinstate the high standards that began over a hundred and fifty years ago.
Where there’s a will there’s a
way.
Is there enough power to cope?
MR Starr’s caution over our green revolution (Letters, December 9) should be taken seriously. The wind turbine near my home has been static on at least two cold December days - hardly conducive to keeping the owners warm.
Even through December and January turbines should deliver energy economically, and at short notice, just like Santa’s reindeer.
Yet one of the UK’s earliest commissioned windfarms, Kentish Flats, has apparently received a generous subsidy - available to most operators for two decades. Its accounts dated 2017 show profit before tax of £11 million, alongside £11 million in subsidies. Have government’s advisors modelled a timetable regarding the provision of sufficient charging points for 37 million vehicles by January 1, 2030? Will a turbine-powered electricity network cope with an extra 7kW demand per electric vehicle day? All solved by one handwritten note in a stocking on the fireplace at Number 10?
Government support no matter what?
IT is always good to hear what Mark ‘ Not in my Constituency’ Eastwood has been up to in his updates for the Examiner.
Rather than the usual platitudes though, it would be far more interesting if Mark could tell us what, if anything, he has been doing to hold the Government to account.
Or does Mark not see this as being of his role?
I know it’s relatively early days and Mark has only been a MP for about a year, but from what I’ve seen so far, Mark does nothing other than slavishly support the Government come what may. This has left me wondering if there is anything whatsoever the Government could possibly do, which Mark would not support. If, as seems increasingly likely, a post Brexit trade deal is not struck with the EU, I assume Mark’s next update in the Examiner will wax lyrical about what great economic news this is for the country.