The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Pyxis

Jackmydad wrote: »

They're not going to be happy, until we're living seven deep, and the roads are one big car park.
Just what are the roads for? getting from one place to another, or for abandoning vehicles for the time they're not wanted?
There are at least two villages near here I know of, where parking has become a major issue.
In one there is parking on one side all up the main street. It turns it into what is effectively a one way system. But it's a "main road" (which is a joke in itself) or at least the main route to get from one town to another.
The other village has random parking so the main street is a sort of slalom, with again "one way" bits.
Local councils seem to think it slows down traffic in the villages!

I think it was at least 20 years ago, maybe more, that planners started to think in terms of encouraging cycles and discouraging cars, so started allowing reduced numbers of parking spaces but insisting on cycle sheds.

So many permissions allow development with very little parking, thinking that it will discourage car use.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
What a joke!
The reality is that people will not give up their cars, of course they won't...... they are too convenient, so all that happens is the roads get clogged with cars and anti-social parking behaviours creep in, causing more stress.

Visitors have nowhere to park, delivery vans block the roads while they are delivering, etc. etc.

It's been made worse, too, by the fact that, where before there was one car per household, then it became two per household, and then adult children still at home have their own cars, so you could have three or four cars where before there was one, or at the most two.

And large houses, which had spaces for 2 or 3 cars in the front garden are demolished and a block of flats built, creating extra density and extra cars, all with these same problems.

But planners won't acknowledge that, or so it seems, thinking that if there aren't enough spaces, people won't have cars.
Poor deluded things.

I'd like to ask them how many cars their own households have!

Jackmydad

Pyxis wrote: »

I think it was at least 20 years ago, maybe more, that planners started to think in terms of encouraging cycles and discouraging cars, so started allowing reduced numbers of parking spaces but insisting on cycle sheds.

So many permissions allow development with very little parking, thinking that it will discourage car use.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
What a joke!
The reality is that people will not give up their cars, of course they won't...... they are too convenient, so all that happens is the roads get clogged with cars and anti-social parking behaviours creep in, causing more stress.

Visitors have nowhere to park, delivery vans block the roads while they are delivering, etc. etc.

It's been made worse, too, by the fact that, where before there was one car per household, then it became two per household, and then adult children still at home have their own cars, so you could have three or four cars where before there was one, or at the most two.

And large houses, which had spaces for 2 or 3 cars in the front garden are demolished and a block of flats built, creating extra density and extra cars, all with these same problems.

But planners won't acknowledge that, or so it seems, thinking that if there aren't enough spaces, people won't have cars.
Poor deluded things.

I'd like to ask them how many cars their own households have!

Ah yes Pyxis, but it's the "them and us" mentality. Of those in charge.
As I say they'd have us living seven (or seventy) deep, in tiny houses, and all cycling everywhere.
"Soylent Green" style.
That way we wouldn't clutter up the roads when they come out of their ten bed country retreats in their Jaguars!

I've said in another thread I don't look at what others have, but I do object to people getting rich off the public purse.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

I think it was at least 20 years ago, maybe more, that planners started to think in terms of encouraging cycles and discouraging cars, so started allowing reduced numbers of parking spaces but insisting on cycle sheds.
So many permissions allow development with very little parking, thinking that it will discourage car use.

Next door to where I used to live, a large block of flats was given the goahead on condition that there be no more than half the number of parking places as flats - to encourage the use of local buses.

Construction had only just started when they scrapped the local bus service.

Jackmydad

chris_m wrote: »

Next door to where I used to live, a large block of flats was given the goahead on condition that there be no more than half the number of parking places as flats - to encourage the use of local buses.

Construction had only just started when they scrapped the local bus service.

Chris, you see that all the time around here.
Recent new green field development on the edge of a village.
40+ homes about half "affordable" (with a big grant apparently)

Bus service a joke, as I've said here many times before. Main towns are 3 miles, and about 7 miles away. No shop there. No local jobs really.
So what are these people who buy these houses to do for transport?

PasturesNew

The fallacy of not owning a car is a middle class dream concept - where the "inventors" in the main have many cars, huge drives and often get chauffeured about for work.

If they want to go out most places they'll just get a taxi.

Most don't/can't ever live like that.... we have to get from A to B to obtain stuff... and public transport usually doesn't go from A to B in a timely manner.

Today I used my car to go to a shop just 300 yards away .... because I thought I was going to buy something weighing 12Kg... which my trolley COULD have managed, except it'd put it under strain and run the risk of it breaking. So I took the car.

Small budget shoppers can't order online because the budget supermarkets don't do online ordering - and supermarkets that DO have it have a minimum basket value and delivery charges. They are also mostly pricier than the budget two. I rarely spend more than £5 when I go into any supermarket.... I'd never be able to get to the minimum basket value.

For other goods I'm usually trying to buy things "cheap", like at £land cheap, or Home Bargains ... so the idea of ordering things online, paying £5-7 delivery, then waiting X days and hoping it comes isn't on the radar.

The other week I went away for the weekend, to have gone there by public transport wouldn't have worked as there was a lot of kit/gear to be carried (a whole car of it) - and the destination would've required a taxi to get from the end of public transport - and then we'd have been stuck in the middle of nowhere ... with a car we get out about locally a bit, as/when needed.

We and our stuff need to be in many places, on a whim.... and you can't lug goods on the local bus, especially if the goods are about 2 cubic metres in size and are a series of about 20 bags/boxes/packs...

You can't order everything online, you need to go and see, poke things a bit, pick it up and get it home. When I recently bought a bit of flatpack furniture I parked by the door and from the till to my car I was "peg legging" it with it balanced on my foot to control/lift it. I want to see it, touch it, bring it home.... even if I struggle to get it to the car and into it.

zagubov

In London, parking's at a premium. Mind you, the bus and tram part of public transport works well enough to make cars a luxury. The underground's usually good, but the train system is struggling.

Planning seems to not be brilliant. For example, there's a spacious unused cycle park at the top of one of the steepest hills in London. That must have satisfied somebody somewhere. Box ticked!

Housing supply in London seems to be completely uncoupling from needs of local people. The available land's filling up with irrelevant overseas-owned empty investment-opportunity properties which have the occupancy rate of a ghost town.

PasturesNew

Hosepipe help. Never had/used one before, but trying now. Previous people left one, I now know why as I tried to use it yesterday for the first time and it leaks like a sieve. Parcel taped it up a bit yesterday and managed to get a 5 minute dribble from the end....

Had another go just now, but there's so much water spraying up the wall by the tap connection that none's getting as far as the end of the hosepipe.

The hose is in one of those plastic reels where you pull it out and then wind it back in, so: tap connector, 2' of pipe into the plastic housing, plastic housing, length of hosepipe.

What's best/cheapest to do? Don't want to own another one. Rather "fancy" the idea of those small "magic" ones. Should I just buy another length of pipe and set of new connectors and take this one apart and rebuild it all with new bits (or has that got disaster written all over it for me) ... and, tap connectors appear to be different sizes, so not even sure what size mine is - the tap is a "standard" factory made "outside tap" that ends in a screw head that fits these things.

How little money could I get away with spending? Or what?

To put a size on it, I'd need 20 metres to be able to reach every corner. Most of that distance is from the tap to where the garden starts as the tap's close to the front of the house and the lawn's at the back.

I might be better off down £land getting a couple of water guns... then working with a bucket of water.... lawn's not big.

michaels

The trains are ok - seats are a premium but always have been. Frequency , especially of fast trains is up, when you have 6 trains an hour even if they are all running 15 mins late it makes no odds. The recent timetable change made them 10-15 mins quicker for the same journey so even with a few minutes delay I still win. In a politically motivated dispute the drivers are working to rule to try an get the franchise renationalised. Long term no doubt this means over staffing, higher wages and fares and less investment but short term I don't suppose it makes any odds either way.


PN I am so glad you don't live next door - the kids have stopped doofing at the front and started screaming in the pool at the back - I guess at least they are not all simultaneously on the trampolines....

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

Hosepipe help. Never had/used one before, but trying now. Previous people left one, I now know why as I tried to use it yesterday for the first time and it leaks like a sieve. Parcel taped it up a bit yesterday and managed to get a 5 minute dribble from the end....
Had another go just now, but there's so much water spraying up the wall by the tap connection that none's getting as far as the end of the hosepipe.
The hose is in one of those plastic reels where you pull it out and then wind it back in, so: tap connector, 2' of pipe into the plastic housing, plastic housing, length of hosepipe.

Sounds like the connection between the hose and the reel has come adrift, or the end of the hose has split/perished so the connection won't seal.

On mine, if I unwind the hose completely, I can see a copper pipe to which the hose is secured using a jubilee clip. Mine kept coming adrift until I replaced the first bit of hose with a slightly larger one that I could push further onto the copper tube before doing up the clip.

Assuming that yours is like mine, the first thing you need to do is unwind the hose completely and turn the tap on so that you can see from where the water is leaking..
If it's the hose but not immediately at the clip you could try undoing the clip, pulling off the hose, cutting out the leaky bit and reassembling.
If it's at the clip, then try unding the clip and pushing the hose further onto the tube before doing up the clip again.

A smear of vaseline (other brands are probably available) on the copper tube can help with pushing the hose onto it.

Jackmydad

PasturesNew wrote: »

Hosepipe help. Never had/used one before, but trying now. Previous people left one, I now know why as I tried to use it yesterday for the first time and it leaks like a sieve. Parcel taped it up a bit yesterday and managed to get a 5 minute dribble from the end....

Had another go just now, but there's so much water spraying up the wall by the tap connection that none's getting as far as the end of the hosepipe.

The hose is in one of those plastic reels where you pull it out and then wind it back in, so: tap connector, 2' of pipe into the plastic housing, plastic housing, length of hosepipe.

What Chris said above as well.
Dipping the pipe in hot water helps to fit it onto a hose tail or pipe.

What's best/cheapest to do? Don't want to own another one. Rather "fancy" the idea of those small "magic" ones. Should I just buy another length of pipe and set of new connectors and take this one apart and rebuild it all with new bits (or has that got disaster written all over it for me) ... and, tap connectors appear to be different sizes, so not even sure what size mine is - the tap is a "standard" factory made "outside tap" that ends in a screw head that fits these things.

How little money could I get away with spending? Or what?

To put a size on it, I'd need 20 metres to be able to reach every corner. Most of that distance is from the tap to where the garden starts as the tap's close to the front of the house and the lawn's at the back.

I might be better off down £land getting a couple of water guns... then working with a bucket of water.... lawn's not big.

You probably want some half inch hosepipe (take a bit with you to check though, there are bigger sizes). Don't buy the cheapest stuff it's rubbish.
Lidl had some in the other day I seem to remember. Their stuff's usually OK.
If they're the push on fittings, if you look at the male part of the connector, it's got an O-ring in a groove.
If they're just leaking, that's often the problem.
If the female part isn't latching on then just replace it.
Most of them are sort of universal, but some are a tight / loose fit.