In article ,
Stan The Man writes:
|
| DEFRA will shortly introduce legislation to dispense with the
| requirement to obtain planning permission for paving -- as long as the
| paving material used is permeable. In view of the increased incidence
| of flooding, it seems sensible to move away from hard landscaping which
| could increase the flooding danger to our homes.
|
| And when we suffer from drought instead, impermeable surfaces conduct
| rainwater to drains from where it flows uselessly out to sea. Better to
| allow it to be absorbed by the land, where some of it will reach the
| aquifers. It could also reduce the risk of subsidence - which became
| very common on clay soils during recent droughts.

Our front 'garden' is permeable block paved with a central drain. The
County Council has raised the pavement over the years so that it runs
into our garden every time there is a rainstorm, and our drive fills
to a depth of c. 4" before draining. I have wondered whether to send
the County Council a bill for providing drainage services ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 10/9/08 13:54, in article ,
"echinosum" wrote:

snip

Incidentally, you do need planning permission for a garden. My father
purchased a strip of field adjacent to his house from the adjacent
farmer, as did the whole road. Unfortunately one of the householders
applied for planning permission to build on their enlarged plot just
before the 10 years "get away with it" were up, so the planning
authority noticed and came around and started accusing people of
turning agricultural land into garden without planning permission.
snip

I agree about the waste of time and effort but that's not really planning
permission, that's 'change of use'. Some spiteful person did that to us in
a Jersey garden. The farmer we'd bought the place from and to whom we let
back the land, wanted to square off a field and there was a tiny triangle of
grass we took over, mainly leaving it long because a skylark nested in it.
Because it was obviously fenced off to keep the cows out or wasn't planted
with maize, said spiteful person told some one in the Ag. Dept. who came and
looked at it, laughed and went away again!


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

On 2008-09-10 12:18:08 +0100, (Nick Maclaren) said:


In article ,
Stan The Man writes:
|
| DEFRA will shortly introduce legislation to dispense with the
| requirement to obtain planning permission for paving -- as long as the
| paving material used is permeable. In view of the increased incidence
| of flooding, it seems sensible to move away from hard landscaping which
| could increase the flooding danger to our homes.
|
| And when we suffer from drought instead, impermeable surfaces conduct
| rainwater to drains from where it flows uselessly out to sea. Better to
| allow it to be absorbed by the land, where some of it will reach the
| aquifers. It could also reduce the risk of subsidence - which became
| very common on clay soils during recent droughts.

Our front 'garden' is permeable block paved with a central drain. The
County Council has raised the pavement over the years so that it runs
into our garden every time there is a rainstorm, and our drive fills
to a depth of c. 4" before draining. I have wondered whether to send
the County Council a bill for providing drainage services ....

Similarly, my rural front garden (gravel on a permeable membrane) only
floods because water rushes in off the tarmacced lane outside. Ordnance
Survey maps show that there are/should be drainage ditches along the
grass verge which borders the lane but the local authority has
neglected these ditches for years, here and just about everywhere else,
with the result that they have all filled in and are no longer visible
to the naked eye.

A lot of flooding issues are caused by local authority negligence.

Producing plant waste is actually a form of carbon fixation, provided you compost them and then return them to the land. If plant waste is going to landfill, and the government is simply trying to reduce the volume of "stuff" it has to deal with regardless of what they are, then they have lost sight of the wood for the trees.

Incidentally, you do need planning permission for a garden. My father purchased a strip of field adjacent to his house from the adjacent farmer, as did the whole road. Unfortunately one of the householders applied for planning permission to build on their enlarged plot just before the 10 years "get away with it" were up, so the planning authority noticed and came around and started accusing people of turning agricultural land into garden without planning permission. The planning officer walked around my father's plot saying things like "That looks like a domestic apple tree rather than an agricultural one to me" and "That looks like a domestic compost heap to me" (in fact it wasn't a compost heap, it was just a pile of rubbish). They invited my father, and his neighbours, to apply for planning permission to convert from agricultural to domestic garden, and turned them all down, and used some power to insist on them planting a hedge (of typical hedgerow plants, not leylandii or ornamentals) on the new boundary. They even tried to require them to use a specified contractor to plant the hedge (the planning officer's brother?), but they successfully resisted that one. Then the neighbour re-applied for planning permission to build a few years later, and got it. What a waste of bureaucratic time and effort.

The message
from echinosum contains these words:

Producing plant waste is actually a form of carbon fixation, provided
you compost them and then return them to the land. If plant waste is
going to landfill, and the government is simply trying to reduce the
volume of "stuff" it has to deal with regardless of what they are, then
they have lost sight of the wood for the trees.

On the contrary - composting produces methane, and that is many times as
potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. But...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

In message , Rusty Hinge
2 writes
The message
from echinosum contains these words:

Producing plant waste is actually a form of carbon fixation, provided
you compost them and then return them to the land. If plant waste is
going to landfill, and the government is simply trying to reduce the
volume of "stuff" it has to deal with regardless of what they are, then
they have lost sight of the wood for the trees.

On the contrary - composting produces methane, and that is many times as
potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. But...

In the long run the methane is oxidised to carbon dioxide. Composting
releases less carbon into the atmosphere than burning plant waste..
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:14:53 +0100, Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:

On the contrary - composting produces methane, and that is many times as
potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. But...

The carbon released to the atmosphere is carbon that was absorbed from the
atmosphere in the months or years the plant was alive. The important thing
is that it's not carbon that was absorbed millions of years ago.

There is a carbon cycle similar to the water cycle. What we have to do is
not overload the abilty of the plant to recycle carbon by dumping billions
of tonnes of fossil carbon into the atmosphere and destroying the rain
forests.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

Frankly, the only widely available papers where the news isn't more
propaganda than fact the
Guardian -



Good grief Nick, I DO hope you're joking with that suggestion!

--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

"Junk mail and free newspapers could also be banned if the report is
accepted. According to the campaign group Stop Junk Mail 17.5 billion items
are pushed through British letterboxes every year, using 550,000 tonnes of
paper."

Now this sentence from the Telegraph thing does make a lot of sense.

Mike
(just back from 8 days internment at the NEC)

"Muddymike" wrote in message
om...
"Junk mail and free newspapers could also be banned if the report is
accepted. According to the campaign group Stop Junk Mail 17.5 billion
items are pushed through British letterboxes every year, using 550,000
tonnes of paper."

Now this sentence from the Telegraph thing does make a lot of sense.

Mike
(just back from 8 days internment at the NEC)


Where does that put church magazines, local community newsletters and the
Rotary / other local organisations Fete or Bring and Buy Sale notices etc
etc etc?

In message , Muddymike
writes
"Junk mail and free newspapers could also be banned if the report is
accepted. According to the campaign group Stop Junk Mail 17.5 billion items
are pushed through British letterboxes every year, using 550,000 tonnes of
paper."

Now this sentence from the Telegraph thing does make a lot of sense.

Mike
(just back from 8 days internment at the NEC)

It does make sense. I remember how free newspapers started, it
was Eddy Shah in a battle to smash the print unions.
Now there is no way of stopping them.
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

In message , Janet Tweedy
writes
In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

Frankly, the only widely available papers where the news isn't more
propaganda than fact the
Guardian -

Good grief Nick, I DO hope you're joking with that suggestion!

The Guarniad is an ecxellant newsapper, but does have rather too much
poltiical comment. :-)
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

In message , 'Mike'
writes

"Muddymike" wrote in message
news:8bKdnUPYgp32dFXVnZ2dnUVZ8uudnZ2d@brightview. com...
"Junk mail and free newspapers could also be banned if the report is
accepted.

Where does that put church magazines, local community newsletters and the
Rotary / other local organisations Fete or Bring and Buy Sale notices etc
etc etc?

Not to mention "Third World Charities" collecting clothing and flogging
it.
I have a clear notice requesting

"No catalogues please. That includes Kleeneze and Betterware, which
will be re-cycled and not returned".

I still had a Kleeneze plop through the door this week, which went
straight into the recycling bin.

On a lighter note, my security camera caught an IKEA distributor
carefully reading my notice before shoving their catalogue through the
door. I have been using it to scribble on...
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

In article ,
Gordon H writes:
| In message , Janet Tweedy
| writes
|
| Frankly, the only widely available papers where the news isn't more
| propaganda than fact the
| Guardian -
|
| Good grief Nick, I DO hope you're joking with that suggestion!
|
| The Guarniad is an ecxellant newsapper, but does have rather too much
| poltiical comment. :-)

And, no, I was not joking.

The difference between the Gnurdian and the Daily Torygraph and the
Mordoch publications is that the Grauniad doesn't deliberately distort
and even falsify what it presents as fact to bias the minds of its
readers. That means that it isn't propaganda - its bias is merely
addled and woolly thinking - and it is usually easy to separate its
commentary from what it claims to be facts.

In terms of actual reliability of 'facts', I agree that there isn't
much to choose.

And my remarks are NOT based on prejudice, but on a sample of actual
checking up on the sources that the relevant papers claimed to have
used. Always assume incompetence in preference to malice, but don't
continue to do so when the evidence of malice is convincing. That
is why I can't stand the Daily Torygraph - it makes even the Tit and
Bum look honest - yet otherwise not-totally-idiotic people actually
BELIEVE what it presents as claimed facts :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 11/9/08 13:41, in article , "Nick
Maclaren" wrote:


In article ,
Gordon H writes:
| In message , Janet Tweedy
| writes
|
| Frankly, the only widely available papers where the news isn't more
| propaganda than fact the
| Guardian -
|
| Good grief Nick, I DO hope you're joking with that suggestion!
|
| The Guarniad is an ecxellant newsapper, but does have rather too much
| poltiical comment. :-)

And, no, I was not joking.

The difference between the Gnurdian and the Daily Torygraph and the
Mordoch publications is that the Grauniad doesn't deliberately distort
and even falsify what it presents as fact to bias the minds of its
readers. That means that it isn't propaganda - its bias is merely
addled and woolly thinking - and it is usually easy to separate its
commentary from what it claims to be facts.

In terms of actual reliability of 'facts', I agree that there isn't
much to choose.

And my remarks are NOT based on prejudice, but on a sample of actual
checking up on the sources that the relevant papers claimed to have
used. Always assume incompetence in preference to malice, but don't
continue to do so when the evidence of malice is convincing. That
is why I can't stand the Daily Torygraph - it makes even the Tit and
Bum look honest - yet otherwise not-totally-idiotic people actually
BELIEVE what it presents as claimed facts :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

But the DT has a high readership and IIRC, the Guardian and Independent have
rather low readerships which would suggest that people don't find the
packaging of their facts very palatable.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon