Of Sloppy Journalism, Silly Scaremongering and Politicians Too Lazy to Check Their Facts

Well, it is Britain after all. So we expect our newspapers to be full of misinformation and abject garbage; we expect our politicians to blurt unsubstantiated rubbish so long as they get their names in the papers.

Personally, I gave up reading our local rag (owned by the same media group as the Daily Mail... 'nuff sed) long ago, it consisting chiefly of house and car adverts doubtless containing as much truth and fact as the pitiful collection of "news" stories.

So, it came as little surprise when a colleague drew my attention to a "news" story in this week's paper entitled: "Safety fears if cycle path shortened".

I was unable to find the story in the on-line version of the paper so I, with heavy heart, parted company with 60p in exchange for a copy of tomorrow's cat litter (at least it would be if I owned a cat).

I won't bother transcribing the whole article here, so I'll just give you the essentials.

The basic story is about a revision to the plans of the "Five Arches Greenway" currently under construction along the formation of the old Somerset & Dorset Railway between Somervale Road, Radstock and Norton Hill School, Charlton Road, Midsomer Norton . The revised plan is for the shortening of the access ramp down from the railway embankment to street level at Silver Street, near the junction with Charlton Road. You can see photos of the construction work on my Flickr group.

The rest of the article is made up of mild hysteria from various members of the public and a local politician bemoaning the "fact" that because of this alteration that children on bikes will be forced onto the main road at a busy junction to continue their way to school.

"This sort of cost cutting will put children's lives at risk" blusters the Councillor, "I want to know what safety measures would be put in place to stop cyclists being injured on the busy corner".

The article finishes with a reference to the Bath & North East Somerset Council Planning web site, which was 11/00619/NMA.

So, a quick look at the B&NES web site takes us to pdf copies of various documents.

This document tells us all we need to know:

Item 8 on this "Non Material Amendment" application tells us:

"The gabion retained access ramp at Silver Street is to be shortened. This will result in the off road path meeting Silver Street further north than shown on the drawing SC217L.

Then comes the important bit:

The path will continue south along Silver Street on a shared 3 metre wide path formed by widening the existing footpath onto the adjacent highway verge.

So, no chucking hapless schoolkids under 4x4s driven by yummy mummies taking Jocasta and Tarquin 400 yards to school, then.

Now, I got this information with 2 minutes effort using a reference from the newspaper article. If I, with zero journalistic training, can do a such a simple task then how come the Daily Mail reject who wrote the scaremongering article failed to do it? How come a local "politician", part of whose job is to scrutinise planning applications, failed to do so?

Jacking up a failing circulation with "shock" stories in the hope of filling next week's letters pages with vitriol from Angry Tory Voting Daily Mail Reader of Midsomer Norton?

Getting more public exposure pending the upcoming local elections?

Fail on both counts.

No sale. No vote.

Not from me, anyway.