An own goal for Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Don't just love it when bureaucrats, like those who work at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, are put in their place?
I've been rubbing my hands with glee this afternoon, and I reckon plenty of people who have been reading the website of my local paper, The Sentinel, will have been too.
Why? I hear you ask. Because in a David and Goliath-style battle, a pub landlord has taken on the town hall and won.
Ian Miller shelled out £400 on a marquee at the Village Tavern pub, in Joiners Square, near Hanley, so his Sunday league football teams had a place to change and dry off after matches.
Nobody complained and all was well.
Then Stoke council's planners ruled the marquee was an "eyesore" and authorised legal action, demanding it be pulled down.
However, they don't take things lying down in Stoke, as Mr Miller was to prove. He appealed and now the Government's planning inspectorate has found AGAINST the council. The outcome? The marquee can stay.
If the city council appeared to be getting to grips with improving life for people in Hanley, Stoke, Burslem, Tunstall, Fenton and Longton, perhaps they could be forgiven for such an over-the-top approach.
But the authority leaves a lot to be desired... Hanley looks like a dump; Stoke doesn't look much better; and there's still no obvious sign that all the talk of regeneration in the Potteries is actually coming to fruition.
Councillors probably wonder why the public are so hostile towards them, but it's meddling in minor matters like the pub marquee that does little to boost the council's PR ratings. With cuts in services looming, and more complaints that the public is being ignored over schools reorganisation, you'd think they'd get their own house in order before picking on the likes of Ian Miller.
Not to mention the benefits of pub regulars playing sport and feeling part of the community.
It appears the lunatics are running the asylum in this city!

Increasing parking charges could kill off Hanley

I got angry the other day.
I was reading the Daily Mail at the time, so it's perhaps no surprise.
And the reason for my fury? A so-called 'think piece' by that condescending toff A N Wilson, who was writing about the sad demise of Wedgwood in Stoke-on-Trent.
It seems he spent part of his childhood living in the city because his dad worked for the former pottery giant when it was a big Staffordshire business. His memories and commentary were fine - until he got to the part of his ramblings in which he described Stoke as a 'dump'; a wasteland with a failing university; a city full of immigrants.
Now that got me mad. For what it's worth, Staffordshire University has had more than its fair share of successes (though perhaps gender-neutral toilets in its nightclub is not among them).
And Stoke-on-Trent might have its problems, but why does the national Press insist on continually describing it as a dump. That got me mad too.
In fact, I resolved never to buy the Mail. Again.
Then I went to Hanley. On the bus. The city centre on a wet Thursday morning...
And after trudging round the shops, I realised I perhaps shouldn't be so angry with A N Wilson. Because it seemed to me that he's right. Stoke-on-Trent is a dump.
I don't know why it hasn't dawned on me before, but Hanley is dismal. Derelict buildings everywhere; vast swathes of land on which factories once stood; the old Woolworths store standing empty.
It was depressing and in desperate need of some serious investment. Fast. Some movers and shakers in the world of regeneration reckon it can become a shopping destination to rival Manchester and the like. Yeah, right.
City councillors and quango bosses with vision and the determination to see plans through to fruition. New jobs. Big high street names. That's what's required.
So imagine my disbelief when I read that Stoke-on-Trent City Council is planning to increase parking charges in the city centre by 45 per cent.
It's part of a drive to bring in extra money to help tackle an overspend which has seen one department go £12m into the red.
This would be all well and good if Hanley was a thriving, bustling, successful city centre. But it's not. It's far from it.
And we're in the midst of a recession (yep, it's official now.) Will people whose credit has been severely crunched be prepared to pay over the odds to park in a depressing city centre with limited retail appeal? I doubt it.
And that can only mean bad news for those businesses already struggling to make ends meet and turn in a decent profit. The council must realise there's a serious risk of more Stoke-on-Trent redundancies if this strategy is pursued.
(There's also the added issue of the Potteries' remaining five towns - Stoke, Fenton, Longton, Burslem and Tunstall - all trying to pull in punters too.)
I just hope somebody on the council sees sense before this proposal is rubber-stamped. Otherwise, those who vote in favour of it could simply be hammering another nail into Hanley's coffin.

Why Elizabeth Hurley should hit the red carpet in Stoke

I'm not a fan of Elizabeth Hurley.
She strikes me as a vain bit of posh totty who has a habit of hanging around with blokes who are more wealthy or talented than she is.
However, a story in my local paper, The Sentinel, in Stoke-on-Trent, might just have changed my opinion of La Hurley.
For it seems she's been recruited by the charity set up by former mobile phone tycoon - and Staffordshire business success story - John Caudwell.
Yep, it would appear that Liz has a softer side than her haughty image might suggest. For she has taken over as Caudwell Children's goodwill ambassador.
The Stoke-based charity offers life-changing help to children in need - namely youngsters who are terminally ill or disabled.
It's had some pretty impressive support from the world of showbiz before and is one of the biggest charities in North Staffordshire.
So I suppose a surprising 'well done' must go to Hurley for pledging her support.
I'll now be anxious to see whether she puts her money where her mouth is and helps bring in some serious cash for the charity.
And I can think of one easy way for her to do it... She just needs to safety-pin herself back into THAT frock and hit the red-carpet outside the King's Hall in Stoke, or the Victoria Hall in Hanley.
Now that'd get the menfolk of the Potteries (armed with their small-change) out in force.

Alton Towers protest is so short-sighted

Call me unsympathetic to trees, but have parish councillors on the patch where Alton Towers operates lost their marbles?
If they haven't, perhaps they took one too many turns on the theme-park's Corkscrew ride before it was dismantled last year.
Because some of these parish representatives are apparently opposing plans for a new rollercoaster to replace the iconic yellow one, which was pulled down before Christmas.
Parish council chariman Tony Moult says the scheme will "encroach" on woodland.
Is he mad?
In an ideal world, the trees would be left alone, and residents living near Alton Towers wouldn't be disturbed by this attraction which provides Staffordshire jobs for thousands of people and brings in millions of pounds to the local economy.
But we're not living in an ideal world. We're living in a pretty dismal one at the moment. Just ask the poor workers from Wedgwood, JCB and countless more big business names who have lost their livelihoods.
There's a credit crunch on. No. Let's be honest. We're in recession, and anything that can safeguard jobs, or create new ones, should be welcomed.
I'm all for close-knit communities and people standing up for what they believe in.
But sometimes - as is the case with these whining councillors - you have to forget parochialism and see the bigger picture.

Feeling sluggish in Stoke-on-Trent

You've got to feel sorry for besieged mum Nicola Bruce, who lives in a council house in Stanfields, near Tunstall in Stoke-on-Trent.
Imagine 50-odd intruders raiding your gaff every night for two years - and the authorities apparently doing little about it.
But these intruders aren't burglars, out on the rob to feed their crack habits. Nor are they tearaway hoodies looking to half-inch a telly to flog as the credit crunch bites. (It' still grim in my neck of the woods - Wedgwood and JCB have announced about 1,000 redundancies this week.)
No, the offenders causing mayhem in Nicola's house are... slugs. Yes. Slugs. And Stoke-on-Trent City Council's partner in these matters, Kier, has done nothing about it, she says.
My local paper, The Sentinel, has reported tonight that Nicola picks up bags of slugs and bleaches her surfaces every morning before letting her kids come downstairs.
It sounds horrific.
Keir reckons the house has received "substantial improvement works" during 2008. Which would be lovely, if it wasn't overrun by slugs who leave their slime everywhere.
Though to be fair to them, they say they'll be back to take a look at the problem again.
Detractors knock Stoke-on-Trent. They reckon the six towns - Fenton, Hanley, Burslem, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall - are dumps and the people are backward-looking.
But I reckon the Potteries could soon boost an admittedly unenviable first... Could this be the city in which the first family in the UK is forced out of their home by slime?

M&S Simply Food branches to bite the dust?

Bad news for posh types in my home town of Newcastle, Staffordshire.
For they'll soon be slumming it in Morrisons with the rest of us when it comes to grocery shopping.
Why? Because Marks and Spencer (or M&S as it's known these days) is pulling the plug on its Simply Food branch in the town.
The shop, on Castle Walk, hasn't been there for very long, and whenever I've walked past (or popped in to treat myself to a very rare snack-sized Melton Mowbray) it's been heaving.
But the economic downturn continues to hit the high street hard.
Newcastle, like other towns including Burslem, Stone, Stafford and Hanley, has just lost its branch of Woolworths. It's still staggering to imagine that 27,000 Woolies workers nationwide have lost their jobs.
Now another name is about to disappear in Newcastle, meaning 19 staff are facing possible redundancy.
I'm getting fed up of all this doom and gloom, to be honest. The sorry demise of Wedgwood at Barlaston, near Stone, is bad enough. Then there's Spode, JCB laying off hundreds of workers, and plenty more companies cutting back or going under.
Who knows where it will end? Towns like Newcastle can't afford to lose these high street giants. There's a handful of independent retailers, but it's the big boys that pull in shoppers with their hard-earned cash.
I hope M&S can be convinced to change its mind and keep the branch open.

Tea-riffic Trentham goes from strength to strength

First came the Trentham Monkey Forest. Then came the Big Wheel at Trentham.
Now the up-and-coming tourist attraction at Trentham Gardens (or the Trentham Estate as it's also known) has another development set to pull in the punters... a £1 million tearoom.
I thought it sounded like a lot of dosh to be splashing on a caff, but perhaps not. Perhaps the tea will be top-of-the-range from Whittard of Chelsea (oh, haven't they gone under?). Perhaps the tea will be served in quality china produced by Wedgwood (oh, haven't they gone into administration?).
Well maybe the cakes will be hand-crafted by Nigella 'God I'm a sexy mother, I know' Lawson? Maybe Gordon Ramsay or some other showbiz type will be doing the dinners.
I'm just being silly, I admit. It's been one of those days. The Lemsip, Strepsils and Marlborough Lights have gone to my head.
But there's a serious point to be made about said-£1 million teashop. Everything that's being done to develop Trentham Gardens as a major visitor attraction is good news. Yes. Good news. In Stoke-on-Trent. (Now there's something you don't hear very much of.)
Because when it comes to North Staffordshire regeneration, Trentham is a major success story. At last, something to celebrate.
So I wish the new tearoom all the very best. And the next time I'm passing, you never know... I might just drop in (after a spot of monkeying around and a turn on the big wheel) to sample one of Nigella's buns.