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And so 2011 beckons. It has to be said that past years ending in -11 have been ones of little significance, and what has happened in them has generally been bad. Caracalla was made Roman emperor in 211; he got the job by assassinating his brother. A pretty unsavoury character all round, he lasted only till 217, when his own praetorian guard did him in. A completely uneventful 500 year gap followed, till in 711 Muslim Arabs invaded Spain, conquering Seville a year later, and at the same time at the other side of the world the seventh Tang emperor Xuan Zong's territory was attacked by different Arabs, who got as far eastwards as Central Asia before running out of steam. Little then occurred elevenwise till 1511, at what time Michelangelo was lying on his back on a scaffold doing up the Sistine ceiling. In 1611 things perked up a bit, with publication of both the King James Bible (an exemplary piece of committee work) and Shakespeare's last and most magical fantasy The Tempest. In 1811 things got a bit busier; George III was declared mentally ill and his son took over, inspiring Regency architecture in the midst of one of this country's frequent economic depressions, this one notable for the Luddite riots; although on the more positive side Avogadro formulated the Law named after him (look it up!!), the Krupp factory opened in Essen and Paraguay became independent. In 1911 there was once again industrial unrest in Britain, but Amundsen got to the South Pole, and it was China's turn to have a revolution. All in all 2011 doesn't have much to live up to; which may be just as well in view of the current state of things.
On a more promising note, the latest stats on Newbridge show that to date the cameras there have snapped over 1000 breaches of the 18 tonnes weight restriction, which, whilst actually doing nothing for the bridge itself, at least shows the surveillance system works. The OCC monitoring officer whose job it is to follow up these breaches reports some success with the offending vehicles' owners, noting with some self-satisfaction that 'one month we might pick up a number of offences by vehicles belonging to the same company and the next we get none, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve.' It may indeed now be well into the present century before the abused bridge finally slides into the Thames.
I have an update on the renewed proposals by Hanson (to dig a sand pit alongside Pine Woods Road, in case any readers have forgotten). Their consultants, still in the 'study phase', are expecting to submit a planning application next March; this will be preceded they say by the publication of 'key findings' in mid-January and a public exhibition in mid-Feb. It is interesting that a second lengthy study is being undertaken when a comprehensive one was reputed to have been done before the first application went in two years ago. The first failed to ask many of the right questions, some of which the LnS group had subsequently to ask for them. We all keenly await Plan B.
Alan Boyce
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