Ramblings
Saunterings
Ramblings: about North-West England
Ramblings is a set of articles about North-West England, of unknown authorship and
indeterminate date, believed to have been written for amusement on rainy days,
which are not unknown in North-West England.
33. Away With the Councillors
It was like the first day of term at school. Everybody was excitedly
chattering away to people they had been pleased to escape from
for months. Diana brought them to order, as usual.
“Right, everyone, quieten down. Let’s get to work. This is our
annual away day, our one day of the year when we can put aside
our day-to-day problems, isolate ourselves from the real world, and
take a more strategic view ...”
The Z-cars theme rang out from a mobile phone and someone
clattered out of the room.
“... a time for lateral thinking, for pushing the box outside
the envelope. In this first session, up till coffee time, we’ll look
at Cumbria’s traffic problems. I’ve asked along Mr Dick Burrow,
head of our Transport Services, to help keep our thinking on the
straight and narrow, unlike our roads which are narrow but not
straight. Dick, perhaps you could kick things off by saying what
the problems are, as you see them”.
“He’s outside on his mobile” said someone.
“In that case” said Joss “I’ll say what the problems are: too
many cars”.
“Thank you, Joss. Admirably succinct, as usual” said Diana.
“Do you have a solution, too?”
“Yes, get rid of the cars” replied Joss.
“Well, since our surveys show that the average visitor spends
three hours 23 minutes every day in a car and doesn’t move more
than, on average, 147 metres from the car, I don’t think that’s really
feasible, do you?” said Diana.
Harry intervened: “Let’s get into the spirit of this and freewheel
a bit. Our roads were never intended for modern traffic and most
of them cannot be widened or straightened. We can’t carry on
pussyfooting around with a by-pass here and a new traffic light
there. We need a bold vision: a plan of where we might be in twenty
years time, so we can begin to work towards it. So let’s imagine that
we did get rid of the cars, or, to be precise,
that we restrict the roads of inner Cumbria
to permit holders, that is, to a few special
people, like us. How would we manage?”
“Well, I wouldn’t get all these fools
stuck up my lane, so I’d manage fine” said
Joss.
“But how would the visitors manage?”
said Mary. “If they couldn’t drive themselves
to Hilltop or Dove Cottage we’d have to
provide shuttle buses or taxis”.
“Taxis. You know, I haven’t seen a taxi
in Cumbria since 1983” mused Margaret.
“We were invited to a wedding at Grange,
and we thought we’d go on the Barrow train. But when we got
there, we found out that the wedding was at Grange in Borrowdale
not Grange-over-Sands, so, along with two dozen others, we had to
hire a fleet of taxis to dash across the Lakes. We got there in time for
the cake and champagne, which was the main thing. Lovely day”.
“Well, thank you, Margaret” said Diana “but let’s get back to
our lateral thinking”.
“OK” said Mary. “We’d need shuttle buses and taxis to all the
tourist spots. But we’d have to think where the buses would come
from ...”
“Well” said Harry “my impression is that most visitors just
like pootling around the lakes, stopping here and there for an ice-cream
or a cup of tea or a photograph or an energetic amble to
the nearest bench. So, we could have buses running from visitor
parking places by the lakes”.
“Yes, I think it would be reasonable to allow visitors to drive
around the lakes” said Mary. “After all, that’s why they come.
Perhaps we should improve the roads around the lakes and ban
them from all the other roads”.
“OK. But we can’t widen the roads, so why don’t we make
them one way?” said Harry. “Everyone would have to drive round
the lake in a clockwise direction, say. After all, it’s not as though
they’re trying to get anywhere particular”.
“Yes, I think we could manage that” said Sam. “Most of our
lakes have some sort of road more or less round them already. I
was in Switzerland in the summer and you should see what they do
with the roads around lakes there. Motorways, underpasses and
fly-overs round the lot of them. We wouldn’t need to go that far. A
simple one-way road with lots of parking places is all we need”.
“Right” said Diana. “To summarise: we’d let visitors drive
one-way around the lakes, where we’d have lots of parking, provide
shuttle buses to tourist attractions, taxis to anywhere else, and leave
the other roads for locals. Sounds good to me. Now, how do the
visitors get to the lakes”.
“Well, I suppose we’d need some sort of ring road going
around the bottom of the lakes - Pooley Bridge, Bassenthwaite,
Santon Bridge, Ennerdale Bridge, Newby Bridge, and so on” said
Harry.
“Like the M25 round London, you mean?”
“Yes, but better, as they would at least have some scenery to
look at when they’re stuck in a jam”.
“Right, so we’d have a Cumbria Orbital, getting visitors
smoothly round to the lake of their choice and out of our way” said
Diana “and they’d leave the Orbital to drive round the lake, getting
a shuttle bus to somewhere like Hilltop if they wished”.
Margaret, still in reflective mood, said “You know, I’ve been
doodling a map of this ring road going round outside the lakes,
with each lake having a one-way road around it, and do you know
what it reminds me of? A pearl necklace, with the lakes being our
pearls”.
“Thank you, Margaret” said Diana. “So that’s the answer,
then, the Cumbria Necklace”.
Just then the door clattered open and Dick Burrow barged in.
“Hello, Dick. Welcome, at last” said Diana. “I hope you don’t
mind but we’ve pressed on. I think we’ve come up with a solution
to all your problems. Show him, Margaret”. Margaret thrust her
doodle into his hand.
“What’s this?” said Dick. “It looks like one of those medieval
collars with spikes on them, used for garrotting”.
Photo:
The present maximum speed on Cumbrian roads.
Traffic jam, available at
a shop in Hawkshead, made of gooseberry (at the bottom), apricot (in the
middle) and raspberry (on top).
Ramblings
Saunterings
© John Self, Drakkar Press, 2024-
Top photo: Rainbow over Kisdon in Swaledale;
Bottom photo: Ullswater