Hugh Craddock

Why build anything to a specified standard if it's not going to be maintained to that standard?

<Especially> those.

“The period goes outside the quotes.” Always?

Don’t forget Shirley Porter, who paid a £12m surcharge for her council’s targeted sales policy.

Photo of purple emperor butterfly perched on bare earth, wings outstretched, showing purple-blue sheen with white markings

We saw this fluttering around on a walk across Princes Coverts (nr Malden Rushett) today, and to our surprise, it landed nearby. It looks like a purple emperor, which would be a first, but aren’t they supposed to inhabit the tree canopy, not sit on the ground?

Careless driving etc must be proven, and might not be prosecuted if, eg, pedestrian steps out without looking. But on a zebra, there’s strict liability: you must be prepared to stop.
As I said: you have cleared this with legal, haven’t you?

Failing to give way on a zebra is a strict-liability offence www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/24... Elsewhere, it may be evidence for careless, and inconsiderate, driving—or it may not. But on an ersatz zebra, pedestrians may <think> they have right of way.
Have you run this past your legal team?

Is that wise? Pedestrians may justifiably assume that they have absolute priority. Yet drivers may not have the same strict liability (as they do on compliant zebras), and so be subject to neither civil nor criminal sanction.

‘Efficiency savings’? They, and you, are using the Tories’ language, still trying to brainwash the public into believing that cuts in spending don’t lead to cuts in services. They do.

No motorist must ever be inconvenienced unless unavoidable. NMUs? Sorry, didn’t hear you.

Welcome to Surrey. I wonder if the council can show us any roads where encroachment has been permitted across three-quarters of the width…or even half?

The 1702 Order really is a delight. If only all meeting minutes were modelled on its form.

That could easily be done by secondary legislation removing the camping restriction in CROW: Sch.2,para.3: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/3.... But it would still be illegal (criminal) to camp on ‘urban’ commons including many in the Lake District: that would require a primary-legislation change.

Wild camping <is> lawful on Dartmoor: Supreme Court has the final word. S.10 of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 does confer a right to wild camp, subject to compliance with byelaws and restrictions. Blog on judgment: Wild about camping pannageman.craddocks.co.uk/2025/05/21/w...

What happens when a passenger leaves behind vomit, beer cans or a wallet. Does the next passenger get to sort it out?

But who maintains? You buy a house at the end of a publicly-maintained country lane—and then the obligation of public repair is abolished?

It would politically be tough to extinguish or downgrade country lanes because almost invariably someone uses them as a sole means of access to a house or other premises and is entitled to have the highway maintained as such.

The jug is washed? Gosh, your office is basking in the lap of luxury. Reform will soon sort out the likes of you.

A jug lined with years of limescale rings, for there is no-one with the role, time or inclination to clean them, and no money for new ones.

If councillors or officers are going to ‘scrutinize…down to the last biscuit’, they’ll be missing the bigger picture. But I do hope that, at their next four-hour planning committee marathon meeting, there’s nothing but a jug of water for members.

Needs watering?

Waymarked post in foreground, hedged boundary recedes into distance, cropped fields either side.

Location map for the confirmed-order way — to the west of Staple, Kent.

Restricted byway order confirmed for Twitham Lane near Staple in east Kent, reuniting for horse riders Woodshole Lane (RB EE269A) and bridleway EE28 with Staple Rd for first time in post-war era. The order takes the byway to the right of the hedge in photo. More: www.craddocks.co.uk/apps/twitham...

Maybe we should pay the Prime Minister a salary commensurate with the responsibility, and put an end to tiresome stories about public servants who get paid more.

The consistent blurring at the bottom suggests a dirty lens.

I think your lens needs a clean!

But, gasp, that would mean some poor farmer losing 0.04ha to compulsory purchase. Councillors wouldn't want that. (They'd be fine about driving the new ring road through the same farm of course.)

They'd get in the way of parking on the pavement.

Powys has a road network of 5,500 km which is more than half the length of rights of way, and costs far more to maintain. I wonder what proportion of that is easy to use?

That seems to be a ‘no’ then?

The Ash Path - The Old Parish of Nonington: a small place in East Kent history The origin of the name “The Ash Path” is to be found in the minutes of a Nonington Vestry meeting of 1883. From the Nonington Parish Vestry minutes:-March 13th 1883: “Mr. Plumptre proposes to give a p...

How typical that a C19 landowner-inspired footpath diversion should be described in the language of ‘giving’ a footpath and ‘doing away’ with the old line, as if kindness itself. Even the ash surfacing was needed to show that the diversion was more ‘commodious’, yet longer. Plus ça change.