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Showing content with the highest reputation on 19/01/10 in all areas

  1. Go back to the 1950's, even 1960's, and the Front Street was a hive of activity. Not so many cars as there are now, but those cars didn't drive right on through. There were factory units in the old Council Yard that provided real jobs making stuff that people wanted to buy, and at lunch time those people, together with many other retail and service workers, came out onto the street and patronised the shops. There was real economic activity on the South side too. It certainly wasn't only the pits that drove the economy. What happened to those factory units - well they got "zoned" by the planners. Moved to the middle of beyond where they steadily died. Instead of walking or biking to work you needed a car, but cheap petrol would go on forever (only relatively lightly double-taxed), and you could park for free more or less where you liked. Instead of just nipping across to Bill Scott's engineering works to get a part drilled or welded and your machine back in service in no time, you got on the phone to the smoke, and then waited days for delivery. This was the era when bigger (we were told) was better. Dozens of "inefficient" small motor manufacturers and parts suppliers were cajoled and bullied by government into large "efficient" groups like the British Motor Corporation. New Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (not a stranger to Bedlington Front Street) told us all about how our future would be forged in "the white heat of the technological revolution". But the politicians and the planners got it all very wrong. They "zoned" countless millions into white elephants like Cramlington and Killingworth "new towns" when all they had to do was provide a little help here and there to established towns of the region, and allow those towns to develop naturally. As a result they destroyed thousands of small-town economies that worked, all in pursuit of a mirage. The real tragedy is that there are people who still seem to believe that central planning, and even local "grand schemes" can deliver any lasting benefit at all. If you visit the current centres of real activity and innovation in the world you'll be struck by how intertwined it all is. There's been little or no central planing, very little zoning; if there's a need for this or that people just get on and do it. I'm not advocating complete planning anarchy, but maybe something like micro-zoning where light industry is permitted (actually encouraged) just off the front street. Any functioning town needs an economic heart. It used to be the colliery, of course; but the Bedlington blunder was removing other light industry, right at a time when we should have been going all out to encourage it. I'm not talking offices or airy-fairy "innovation centers" here, but places where people get their hands dirty. Ideally we should have some light industry within a couple of minutes walk of the Market Place, but is there anywhere now left that hasn't had "for profit" houses built on it? And, we've now created a major NIMBY problem too! We also need just a portion of that big government (national and regional) squander in the hands of our own local people, and a free hand to dispense it in any direction where it will aid sustainable employment. Sure there will be local squabbling and some mistakes; but they will be our squabbles and our mistakes, and local people will see them and directly correct them. Local authorities without money to spend are a sham, and we shouldn't accept the power structure which has been foisted off on us without any sort of mandate. The past has taught us that small and local is good, and that governments - national and even regional - have (at best) a huge propensity for waste, and (at worst) are totally counterproductive. We need real change - a restoration of local democracy with its own spending power - and not the illusory change which has been imposed on us!
    1 point
  2. Suppose to some, 4 cans and a Best Bite or Moby's kebab must be a good meal/night.. :0) However some of us have better tastes and appreciate good food, good wine and good service.. Its really nice to be able to have a wander down the street and not have to drive or taxi for miles to get such a nice meal & atmosphere with such personal service.. Suppose if Accolade was in town or Morpeth you'd be happy to pay £5 for a starter!
    1 point
  3. Here we go with that old defeatist attitude again (and, incidentally, if you think you'd get a starter for a fiver at any of those two venues you must be joking - you wouldn't get a slice of bread); why shouldn't Bedlington have a quality restaurant, serving great food (and it is great, really)? Are you of the opinion that 'as this is Bedlington Front Street' we should be limited to kebabs and takeaways? Furthermore, how much is a Pizza at Best Bite these days? How much is a kebab at Moby's? Compare what you pay there, and what you get, with what you pay and get at Accolade and you have to be a fool to realise you're being robbed at four quid for a doner! Rather than dissing a place that charges what are - if you know what you're on about - very sensible prices indeed for excellent food, and rather than pouring scorn on a local couple who are attempting to make somethinf of themselves and move away from this 'but its only Bedlington' attitude, we should be championing a successful (very successful, in fact) and award winning business (best small restauarant in the north) that might just inspire others to open something that is not a hairdressers once in a while. If you're willing to pay more than ten quid for four pints, I can't see why anyone should turn up their nose at the same price for the best meal you'll find in the locality.
    1 point
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