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The Preston Council Leaders blog says the Planning Committee will be sitting on Wednesday’s 8th and 15th of July to assess the Tithebarn planning application.

I have some doubts although overall it sounds good enough.

Liverpool One cost about £1bn which is about 40% more than Prestons £700m. It’s size is about 42 acres compared with  32 acres for Preston which is about 30% more.  So Prestons development is cheaper per acre, if that means anything. I’ve read that Liverpool One had some cost overruns although the figures I’ve seen quoted aren’t that clear and are around 10% which doesn’t seem overly excessive.

The Leader of Preston Councils blog says the developers have assured the council it will be available and suitable for the Guild Celebration. I guess there is a risk but that part of Preston didn’t feature much in the Guild I didn’t think except for the bus station and car park. A shuttle bus service from a car park on Moor Park might be needed. Is that in the budget?

Shame about the old bus station it’s a unique and impressive building to look at, although I recall when I used it I thought it was hard to access and you couldn’t see the bus destination boards. Reversing buses didn’t seem such a good idea either.

Saturday 20th June, a sunny day after early cloud, parked at Deepdale and wandered round the National Football Museum. Thought it had improved since my last visit. Seemed a lot to take in and so I focussed on the last 50 years. Watching a video of George Best made me think that he was better than Ronaldo, although it’s hard to compare as the game is different now.  Best had such balance and the ball seemed glued to his feet. Compare a football shirt of the 1960’s with one of today, a bit like comparing aunties knitted cardigan with a brand name made from fine material. Nice room for Tom Finney. Enjoyed creating my own football show, only a bit confused. North Ends ground is looking good now although the new stand seems an odd fit, presumably to keep its line down against the houses behind, shame really.

Then a short walk up to Fulwood Barracks to see the Military Show. The barracks are a mid 19th century uncompromising military building, attractive in its way. Although it takes a large area it’s something that must be preserved.  There is a large square surrounded by functional terrace style accommodation made from large blocks of stone.  I’ve often wanted to see the Queens Lancashire Regiment museum and it was open. Not much room to move with the crowds from the show so didn’t linger. Once again there is a lot to take in and I end up with more questions than answers. The museum is a bit dark and varnished wood in style. Explanations of battles and displays of medals, a banquet hall and chapel. I had read there is a booklet about the regiment, and have seen it on Ebay, but I didn’t see it in the museum, there isn’t a shop.

So a walk round the display outside; several recruiting displays including one for the infantry enabling a feel of different types of guns, a lot of boys round here. A boxing ring with a tiny boy giving a soldier a real miniature pasting. Boxing separates men from boys but in this case the tiny boy was really going for it, till the soldier raised himself off his knees a bit and the boy suddenly realised it wasn’t all plain sailing. An RAF cockpit was popular and so was the Challenger Tank and Armoured Personnel Carrier. The 105mm gun attracting a crowd.  Younger boys enjoyed the horns in the Land Rovers.  A military band and pipe band were playing. There was a marching and action display later but I left before it started. Seemed a popular day.

Exeter University does a survey of Universities each year that is published in the Times newspaper. I thought I’d have a look at this and produce a laymans view.

The criteria are; Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Entry Standards, Student / Staff ratio, Services and facilities spend, completion, good honours, graduate prospects. These are all scored.

Top is Oxford with a total of 1000 points. It isn’t immediately obvious how this 1000 was calculated although I guessed it is the benchmark and the others would be a percentage of this top figure for easy comparison. However a simple calculation resulted in the university with 504 points only having about 40% of Oxfords total so I havn’t persevered to work it out.

It must be difficult for Exeter as they did the exercise and got it independantly assessed. However they rose significantly in the table. Their out-performance in student satisfaction being compensated by low entry standards. Does any university look at this and say we can improve a bit here and jump up?

Overall the table looks like a useful indicator but I’d be wary of being too precise in analysing it.  For example I’d be wary of subjective measures like student satisfaction.  Facilities spend is another skewed area as a university building a new extension will get more than one that’s just finished building one. Do you want to study on a building site?  Student / staff ratio might hide other factors like part-time or distance learners. In general the table order looks like you’d expect it to. Without advice on interpreting this my own method is to look at individual statistics to see if any stand out and take all of it as an indication and not as an absolute.

Out of 114 organisations UCL was 78th a fall of 15 places.  A total of 392 points compared to Oxfords 1000.  To maintain their position they would need another 40 points which might be in the level of error.  Interestingly Graduate Prospects at UCL would put them well up the table which is something I’d be interested in as a student. On the other hand completion and entry standards are a bit lower than those around it and student staff ratio is a bit higher. So if you do complete prospects are better than many, at that time.

Oxford and Cambridge are in a league of their own, like Manchester United and Chelsea at football. You then come to those with good research quality and consistent spread with points over 600. Then a middling ruck and some floating adrift at the bottom due to a couple of bad scores.

If I was a student I’d find this interesting yet I’d know what sort of place I wanted to go to. Take York – nice city, newish buildings, good reputation, same for Lancaster. Or would I want a big city. If I was a parent I’d say Lancaster(23rd a fall of 4), in the country. If I was a student I’d say Manchester(24th a rise of 3) in the heart of the city. Well maybe anyway, I should be thinking about intellect. Depends on your subject and your results and if you can make an impression.  I have a degree from the Open University and it isn’t on the list. Having left school with nothing there is still a way in with the OU although it’s a lot more expensive now than when I did it.

The birds have been well fed in our garden for several years though protection from pests is a constant battle. The hanging seed container gets unwanted visitors like squirrels and yesterday a baby mouse had climbed up the post around 10am and was brazenly eating sunflower seeds. The seed tray on the ground also gets squirrels but more recently woodpigeons. These are persistent and last night there were 3 of them, one on each neighbours roof and ours. Smaller birds have no chance as they buzz them or just push them out. Now I’ve got a cover that goes over the seedtray when they arrive. It takes the fun out of it as the visiting small birds are getting fewer. The squirrels have got fewer as well and I wondered if someone was relocating them. After seeing the mouse hygiene steps are being put into place.

The woodpigeon is a very plump bird with a small head and its wings are noisy in flight. They’re very aggressive between themselves and have frequent wing flapping battles. The male is quick to make amorous bowing and rotating movements to any female but when it comes to food the male pushes the female out till he’s finished. Despite this aggression they’re shy with humans and leave at the smallest movement, but soon come back.  When they are nervous they make a small sideways edging movements that get bigger till they decide to go. They always completely clean all the seeds and any very small bits and will try to swallow pieces of bread that are far too big. Brassicas and other gardeners delights are favourites and young cabbage can be decimated.  Their drinking habits are unusual for a bird as they are able to suck whereas most birds collect water in their beaks and tip their heads back. As well as flying, walking is one of their activities enabling them to investigate every area of the garden. Despite their size they get into tight positions and will repeatedly try to get to unattainable food. They have a range of sounds from a low grunt to loud cooing.  They hide in trees and find different stealthy ways to approach protected areas. Although a problem they’re amusing and interesting birds.  It’s still raining.

Real Madrid are said to be offering £80m for Ronaldo of Manchester United.  If the offer is true it seems irresistable. Noticed that one reporter said Real Madrid havn’t confirmed the figure.  Ronaldo is a great player that brightens up the Premier League. His value to his club must be immense in terms of public relations.  Put into perspective if Berbatov is worth £30m and Tevez £25m then Ronaldo must be worth over £50m as a player and his publicity rights must be worth millions a year. On the other hand his salary is immense as well.

EUFA seem to think the Premier League is cheating by getting foreign investors but it’s interesting how the 2 top Spanish clubs are funded as they have some kind of government arrangement that seems to give them a bottomless wallet.

Interesting that PNE, who are the 24th best English team, couldn’t pay Ronaldo’s wages if they sold the whole team.

The last few years have been disastrous for the Royal Lancashire Show with venues being waterlogged. Now Moor Park is in the frame for the next one. Sounds a great idea.

The agricultural show run by the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society displays all that is good about the country around Preston.  To have it in a park in Preston makes a statement about the ties between town and country.

The park is a large area and using PNE’s facilities should help as well as bringing people to the National Football Museum.  With police help the route from the motorway is fairly direct with access from 3 junctions and even shuttle services from the empty park and ride at Bluebell Way and the railway station.

Involvement from local schools will be beneficial although being held in July it will be in the holidays. Let’s hope the RLAS committee agree.

Today’s Times is crowing that the South East is less hit by the recession and will pull the rest of the country up “once again”.

Well give us £9bn investment in a northern Olympic city, £20bn in a new underground line, £5bn airport terminals, high speed railway lines and stations, endless other investments and big government departments and maybe the north would be less effected.

Then again Preston is due a £700m investment in the Tithebarn Project but others in the region don’t want it.  Looked at from the bigger picture this could look like an own goal.  In Blackpool and Blackburn they think a small amount say £50m each each is better than one getting a big top up.  Maybe if Blackburn got a big project Preston would object, hard to say.

Talk is that Alan Irvine is wanted by Reading, although PNE are denying any offer. Hope it’s true and he stays at Preston. It’s always flattering and you know you have someone worthwhile if a club higher in the table with bigger gates is after your staff. Then again it isn’t clear that Reading has that much potential.  If they are a step up it’s not that big and it might easily go pear shaped.

Other talk is that Paul McKenna is wanted by Notts Forest. PNE have admitted rejecting 2 offers and the story is that Billy Davies has leaked it as part of a masterful type of unsettling strategy. Is it flattering that a lower team with bigger gates is after your players? Probably. Is it unsettling? Probably not.

I’m not getting a lot of genuine comment on this blog, although I don’t mind that.  The blog is fully moderated so posts need approval.

Unfortunately the people who think they can automatically get a comment onto this blog that advertises their product are sending a lot of stuff. I have a automated blocker and deleter but have stopped comments on some posts because of automated nuisance mail that sends an input every 15 minutes.

The world can be a strange place where people have jobs with the objective of spoiling, gas and phone companies tie you in and you need to read the small print of complicated tariffs.

Blackburn council have distributed 59,000 newspapers outlining their objections to Prestons Tithebarn scheme.   I was impressed that, on BBC Look North, Blackburns council leader seemed to make Preston appear like a major centre that would become even more dominant in the region. It made the Tithebarn sound even more desirable from Prestons viewpoint and made me more in favour.

It did say that Blackburn was having a £66m shopping centre built but they were obviously unimpressed that Prestons was £700m, although the money isn’t all on shopping. I think if the tables were reversed I would be wanting more spent in my own place rather than preventing investment elsewhere. This area is quite delicately placed being the last point of major development south of Glasgow, 200miles away. Quite often areas on the fringe retreat during a recession as money gets pulled back into the core so to be objecting to investment sounds like a bit of an own goal. We would hope for a broader world view.

Heysham nuclear power stations are 20 miles from Preston.  Lancaster is 5 miles away from them and on the route of the prevailing wind. I’ve never particularly  felt threatened by their proximity.  Should we be worried on the grounds of safety that a new station is planned?

The strange thing is that if you think about it enough you might be worried. If you don’t think about it much it seems to fall into the category of one of those things in life. You might be more at risk if you live under a flight path or next to a railway line or busy road. Yet danger doesn’t seem to be a factor in objections to these.

In the worst case Lancashire might be uninhabitable for 1000yrs and many might die of strange illnesses. Yet the collision of a  jet carrying nuclear weapons over Preston or a meteor falling might be as likely.

You might argue that other forms of energy will do the job or that better insulation and efficiency would cut the need for power.  Forecasts say that our power demand will continue to increase and that we’ll be importing most of our fuel. My own opinion is that the government target should be to reduce the amount of power needed so the UK is almost  independant of overseas fuel, not to just use less fossil fuel.

How much power do I use. My car, £900 of petrol. The house about £1000. How much would it cost to halve my power bill. Sell the car, no thanks.  I started thinking about this and realised it’s a big subject and I’m not going to do the research. All these electric trains and heated work buildings, will they only operate on windy days or when the tide is going out. I thought not. Then again we don’t want nasty wind turbines spoiling the view, gas storage exploding beneath us, tidal barrages silting the estuary, coal polluting the atmosphere, nuclear fuel leaking into the water table, liquid gas shipping dangers, at least not in my back yard.

I’d still go for more insulation particularly on new build, who can complain about reducing bills over the long term. Property is priced on what you can get for it, not on what it costs to build.

Builders are saying they want a lot of notice to bring in new requirements. Well I’d say all new plans put forward from now are to have a maximum of £1/sq.m of floor fuel bill p.a. and this will be reduced.  We’re in a recession so there aren’t many new plans. Unemployed architects can work this out.  This is low tech stuff not the proverbial rocket science. The regulations will make it that this is a peculiarly British requirement so, strangely, only British jobs for British workers will be created.

Overall I’ve always favoured nuclear power although recently I’ve been less certain. It appears suddenly everyone is saying it’s the solution, so probably it’s not.  How certain are supplies of uranium if everyone is building them?  Neither do I trust the government to make good decisions as there seems to be a lack of wisdom and foresight in the governing bodies of the UK.  Also watching Nimbies clutching straws is an irritant, but you can’t help thinking it could be me.  Arguments about safety and storage of fuel need to answered by extreme safety measures and some good technology. On the other hand I think we should use coal as well and it doesn’t need to be Persil white, there has to be some compromise.

So back to Heysham, it looks like its coming. It’s probably French. That brings me to another debate about most of our industry being controlled from overseas. Yet many don’t want the EU to control us. Seems we left the back door open.  I’ll save that.

Interesting programme on BBC last night. John Harris a Mancunian living in the south travelled to Yorkshire, Godalming and Cambridge to find out if there was a north south divide. Apparently people in the south don’t recognise such a thing but that seems to demonstrate their insularity.   People in the north recognise it but seemed to be involved in small project lower return activity, or blindly smug like in Harrogate.

One researcher commented that the north had its time when industry was a force but now that services and intellectual products are prominent with trade to Europe there is a natural drift to the south that is only inhibited by planning laws.  This is something that I’d sympathise with as I’ve wondered what is the purpose of the north of England?  It no longer has a differentiating factor like textiles or shipbuilding.  Trade no longer mainly points across the Atlantic so the north west is on the wrong side. Theoretically an intellectual product can spawn anywhere there is a group of like minded people. However being close to a market and a community of like people, e.g. Cambridge, gives an advantage. Only Manchester in the region has this.

Also how many in the population are capable of doing these jobs?  The textile industry employed mainly manual workers so what are they going to do. It does seem that sources of intellect like universities need to spawn local businesses. Government jobs need to spread around. Fast communications like High Speed Rail and very fast broadband needs to be built into the whole area to keep it above water. On the other hand if you’re retired like me it is less hectic but we need to make work for our younger ones.