There are certain things you expect to see when you go for a brisk walk through the Norfolk countryside. You expect a bit of mud, some disappointed pheasants, and perhaps a church tower that looks like it was built by someone who only had a general diagram. What you do not expect is a three-thousand-strong mountain of discarded fridges looming over the tree line like a suburban glacier. And yet here we are.
Due to a sudden processing backlog at recycling plants, thousands of unwanted fridges and freezers have ended up stacked together in a massive white pile at a former recycling site outside Norwich. It is being described as a temporary storage issue. In Britain, "temporary" usually means it will still be there when archeologists dig up our civilisation in the year 4000 and conclude we worshipped a deity named Beko.
It is an extraordinary monument to human inconvenience. A mountain made entirely of appliances that all used to contain three dead tomatoes, half a bottle of stale salad cream, and an old tub of margarine containing mystery soup. If you stood on top of it with a pair of binoculars, you probably would not be able to see the sea, but you would be able to spot at least five hundred missing ice scrapers.
The sheer scale of it is breathtaking. It is essentially our version of Mount Rushmore, only instead of historic presidents carved into granite, we have four storeys of rusty frost-free drawers and broken door seals. You could try packing your own picnic in a portable cool box, but even that feels like a risk when the entire county is slowly turning into a giant appliance graveyard.
Naturally, officials have assured everyone that the situation is being closely monitored. That is always comforting. Monitoring a mountain of three thousand fridges sounds like a very peaceful job, mostly consisting of standing nearby with a clipboard to make sure none of them suddenly decide to defrost. If nothing else, it proves that no matter how advanced our society becomes, our ultimate destiny is always to be defeated by basic kitchen logistics.
There are certain things you expect to find in a communal garden. A rotary dryer. A plant that nobody waters and everybody blames. What you do not expect is a mattress, a chest of drawers, dismantled wardrobes, suitcases and a growing mound of bags that foxes have decided is a buffet. And yet here we are in Dringhouses, York, where a tenant says she first reported the unofficial dump last December and the pile has since acquired the confidence of a visitor attraction.
She told the local paper she has to step over the rubbish to reach the actual bin. About four people from the council have been round and taken photographs. “It is like a museum,” she said. “I feel like I have artefacts in my garden.” Her housing manager’s line was that these things take time. A year, she suggests, is taking the mic. City of York Council has been asked for a response, which is the civic equivalent of putting the kettle on and hoping the foxes finish first.
This is the British fly-tipping model in miniature. First someone leaves a mattress because a collection slot is three Thursdays away. Then someone else sees the mattress and decides the garden is now a tip. Then the foxes open the food bags, which is nature’s way of writing a strongly worded email. Then officers arrive with cameras, which is enforcement as a hobby.
I have some sympathy. Councils are short of crews and long on process. A communal garden is nobody’s and therefore everybody’s, which in practice means it belongs to the person with a broken wardrobe and a dark evening. I have less sympathy for a system that can photograph a chest of drawers in January and still be living with it in September. If the artefacts are catalogued, they are not a surprise. They are a filing system with slugs.
If you are not waiting for the museum to close, Amazon will sell you heavy duty rubble sacks. They will not summon a crew. They will at least pretend the chest of drawers has a future other than the lawn.
I do not expect York to declare the garden a scheduled monument. I do expect another photograph, another promise that these things take time, and another fox with a clearer diary than the housing team. Remember that the next time someone says the report has been logged. Logged is not lifted.
The latest Steve N Allen (almost) Daily is up. This one is called No Benefits for Alcohol, which is the sort of headline that makes the nation reach for a drink and then think better of it. Plus the other news nuggets that would not sit still long enough for a newspaper column.
If you like your policy with a hangover and a punchline, have a listen. If you would rather stay on the official side of the bar, Amazon will sell you alcohol-free beer. It will not settle the benefits argument. It will at least look like a pint.
Have a listen below. If the player misbehaves, the same episode is on Spotify, Apple and the usual suspects. Watch on YouTube, read the Substack, email me@mrstevenallen.co.uk, or tip the host on Ko-fi if the dry news left you feeling generous.
Here we are in Bedford, where Labour wanted a referendum on abolishing the elected mayor, the chamber said no, and the monitoring officer named the price.
Bedford has had a directly elected mayor since a referendum twenty-four years ago. The current one is Tom Wootton, Conservative, in post since 2023. Labour’s motion was to let residents decide if the model should go and a leader-and-cabinet take its place, the way Luton and Central Bedfordshire already do. Councillors were told the poll would cost about £375,000 across twenty-eight wards, plus officer time. Sixteen voted for it. Twenty-four voted against. Four Conservatives abstained, which is the civic equivalent of leaving the room to take a call that never comes.
The mayor’s point was simple. He had not seen Bedford marching through the streets demanding a ballot. A petition existed. It had 171 verified signatures. The statutory threshold to force a referendum is 6,940, which is five per cent of the electorate. That is not a rounding error. That is the difference between a Facebook group and a mandate. Independent councillor Doug McMurdo called the timing ill-thought-out. We cannot afford it, he said, which is the most Bedford sentence available when the alternative is a very expensive conversation about a chain.
I have some sympathy with reviewing the furniture. Models of local government should not be sacred just because they are old. I have less sympathy with spending the best part of four hundred thousand pounds to discover what a petition of 171 already told you. If the public really wanted the mayor gone, they would have found the other 6,769 names. They found the energy for a lot of other arguments this year. They did not find this one.
If you are founding a breakaway parish with a ceremonial chain of your own, Amazon will sell you a mayor’s chain. It will not cost £375,000. It will not require a monitoring officer. It will look slightly more official than a clipboard.
Britain is very good at this. We will pay almost anything for a consultation except the bit where we notice nobody asked for one. Remember that the next time a councillor says the public deserve a say. Sometimes the public already said it, quietly, by not signing.
There are certain things you expect a British city to survey. Parking. Bins. Whether the new benches should be green or a slightly different green. What you do not expect is an official consultation on whether the air smells of eggs. And yet here we are in Plymouth, where people in Plympton and Cattedown have been living with what they call the pongs, and the council has now asked them to write it down.
The source, residents say, is South West Water’s Marsh Mills wastewater works. The smell has been around for years. They say it got worse when the new town of Sherford started sending its business the same way. One mother in Cattedown says it is usually every morning. An independent councillor in Plympton says people are selling up. If you sleep with the window open, it gets into the curtains. That is not a lifestyle choice. That is a utility with a personality.
Plymouth City Council’s answer is a survey, so it can “better understand the location, frequency and impact.” Then the findings go to a scrutiny panel, and South West Water is invited to a meeting. This is how Britain treats a smell. First we live with it. Then we map it. Then we invite the people who make it to explain, in a committee room that does not smell of eggs, why the committee room does not smell of eggs.
I have some sympathy. Waste has to go somewhere, and new houses have to flush. I have less sympathy for a process that treats “it stinks” as a data gap. You do not need a heat map of hydrogen sulphide to know that a street should not greet you like a bag of forgotten salad. House prices will do the mapping for you, just more slowly and with more estate agents.
If you are holding the line until the scrutiny panel convenes, Amazon will sell you air freshener. It will not fix Marsh Mills. It will at least pretend the living room has a different opinion.
I do not expect the survey to surprise anyone who has a nose. I do expect a report that says the problem is complex, the works are essential, and residents should keep feeding in their lived experience. Lived experience, in this case, is the smell of eggs at breakfast. Remember that the next time a water company says it is listening. It usually means it has booked a room.
There are certain things you expect to find in the middle of a Stratford-upon-Avon roundabout. Cones. A discarded Greggs bag doing laps. What you do not expect is a piece of public art that has been hit by a car and then abandoned by every official who might reasonably own a screwdriver. And yet here we are. The Armillary Sphere on Banbury Road is still standing, two months after the crash, with its steel bands bent like a paperclip that lost an argument.
Warwickshire County Council says it looks after the road, not the sculpture, and had “no involvement in the commissioning, delivery or installation.” Stratford District Council is “currently investigating” and “exploring the options,” which is council-speak for a long meeting and a short conclusion. They hope to recover the cost from the driver’s insurer. A former mayor has pointed out that a lot of people never wanted the thing in the first place. When it went up in 2009, paid for from a developer pot of about £100,000, a petition to take it down gathered 1,183 signatures. It stayed. It has now been improved by a Ford.
This is the British way with public art. First we argue about whether it is art. Then we argue about whether it is public. Then a Vauxhall settles the aesthetic debate and we argue about the invoice. Nobody is against spheres, exactly. Nobody is for a four-figure welding job that might turn out to belong to a department that was abolished in 2011 and reconstituted as a strategy.
I have some sympathy. A roundabout is a hostile environment for anything with feelings, including motorists. I have less sympathy for three organisations in a room, each holding a folder marked “not us.” If your Arts Strategy of 2005 can birth a sphere, it ought to be able to admit the sphere exists when it gets a dent.
If you are restoring your own household armillary sphere, Amazon will sell you metal epoxy. It will not decide which council writes the cheque. It will at least pretend to be a solution.
I do not expect Shakespeare’s town to unbend this quickly. I do expect the sphere to remain a conversation piece, which is what public art is for, just not usually because a bumper got there first. Remember that the next time a press officer says they are exploring options. It means the sculpture is still crooked, and so is the organogram.
The latest Steve N Allen (almost) Daily is up. This one is called King v Earl, which is the sort of fixture Britain still puts on the fixture list even when the rest of the week is on fire. Plus the other news nuggets that would not sit still long enough for a newspaper column.
If you like your headlines with a coronet and a grievance, have a listen. If you would rather settle the matter over a brew, Amazon will sell you a teapot. It will not decide who outranks whom. It will at least be warm.
Have a listen below. If the player misbehaves, the same episode is on Spotify, Apple and the usual suspects. Watch on YouTube, read the Substack, email me@mrstevenallen.co.uk, or tip the host on Ko-fi if the peerage news left you feeling generous.
There was a time when the great municipal panics of Britain involved a sofa in a canal or a wheelie bin left out on the wrong Tuesday. Now several councils in the West of England are looking at High Court injunctions so that anyone who ties a flag to a lamp-post can be fined, sent to prison, or have their assets seized. Not because the flag is illegal. Because the furniture belongs to the council, and the council is tired.
Bristol says it has spent about £50,000 taking flags off lamp-posts and railings. That figure does not include the officer hours spent driving out, filling in forms and answering emails about bunting. Somerset puts its bill at a more modest £2,900. Oxfordshire already has the court order. Bristol is considering the same. Breach it, and you are not in a debate about patriotism. You are in contempt.
I have no brief for people who treat a lighting column like a flagpole they forgot to buy. I also have no brief for a legal machine that escalates from “please don’t” to “we may take your car” because a St George cross has been cable-tied to a pole. Fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money to spend proving you own a lamp-post. You could resurface a side street for that. You could buy a lot of actual flagpoles and put them where flags are supposed to go.
The official line is safety, street furniture and cost recovery. Fair enough. A flag in the wrong place is a maintenance job. A High Court injunction is a personality. Once you have one, every cable tie becomes a test of the realm. The people putting the flags up think they are making a point. The people taking them down think they are enforcing a duty. Both sides will now get a barrister, which is how Britain settles an argument about a lamp.
If you would rather fly something on your own property, Amazon will sell you Union Jack bunting. It will not need a cherry-picker. It will not generate a fifty-grand invoice. It will look a bit like a street party, which is what flags used to be for.
I do not expect this to end with everyone calmly using a proper pole. I do expect another council to announce that it has spent a small fortune defending a piece of metal from a piece of cloth. Remember that the next time someone says local government is only trying to keep the streets tidy.
Here we are again. There are certain things you expect a county council to spend three years on. A bypass. A pothole that has achieved heritage status. What you do not expect is a legal war over a 98 centimetre gap in a garden wall in Matlock. And yet here we are. Helene Ball, 81, who has lived on George Road since 1967, has just won. The council cemented a metal fence panel across the gate her family had used since the sixties. A tribunal has now said, in the calm language of people who bill by the hour, that she had a right of way all along.
Derbyshire County Council did this in April 2023 because the car park on the other side was going up for sale as a small housing site. Block the gap, tidy the asset, hope the retired teacher gets bored. She did not. The fence panel came out within a year. The vehicle access did not. For the rest of the fight she was left threading a route the council later marked with concrete blocks, which is the civic equivalent of being invited back to the party and asked to sit on a breeze block.
The judge, Robert Brown, found some of the council’s evidence surprisingly combative, totally irrelevant and most unhelpful. That is legal-speak for “please stop.” Costs: £50,000, to be paid by the council, which has declined to say what the whole performance actually cost. Helene, a retired teacher of nine, ten and eleven-year-olds, said she never expected the council to act so babyish. When a woman who has marked spelling tests for a living calls your strategy childish, you should sit down.
I do not doubt that car parks need selling and housing needs building. I do doubt that the fastest route there is to concrete someone into their own garden and then argue about the 1960s. If your official process is a metal panel and a three-year wait, people will invent a smaller, louder one and take it to a tribunal. They have. A right of way is now written down. The gap is a gap again.
If your own wall is feeling insecure, Amazon will sell you a wooden garden gate. It will not stop a council with a sale board. It will at least be a gate, which is more than Matlock was offered for a while.
Britain is very good at this. We can map a county to the nearest centimetre and still lose a decade arguing about a hole in a wall. Ninety-eight centimetres. Remember that the next time a press officer says they were only trying to be helpful.
The latest Steve N Allen (almost) Daily is up. This one is called How to End the Drought, which is a bold title for a country that treats a hosepipe ban as both a national emergency and a personality test. Plus the other news nuggets that would not sit still long enough for a newspaper column.
If your lawn has gone the colour of a Rich Tea and you are still waiting for a minister to invent rain, have a listen. If you would rather take matters into your own hands, Amazon will sell you a watering can. It will not end the drought. It will make you look busy.
Have a listen below. If the player misbehaves, the same episode is on Spotify, Apple and the usual suspects. Watch on YouTube, read the Substack, email me@mrstevenallen.co.uk, or tip the host on Ko-fi if the dry spell has left you feeling generous.
There are certain things you expect a district council to fall out with Whitehall over. Bin collections. A bypass that has been “imminent” since the Silver Jubilee. What you do not expect is a High Court case about seven tenths of one per cent. And yet here we are, in Worcestershire, where Wychavon has been told it is “not delivering” because 10.7% of its refused housing schemes later won on appeal. The official limit is 10%. The difference is the sort of margin you would ignore on a bathroom scale and then think about for the rest of the day.
The punishment, handed down in June, stripped councillors of the right to vote on big planning applications. Officers decide instead. The council calls this outrageous. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says it wants homes and infrastructure built quicker for local people, which is government speak for “please stop saying no.” A two-day hearing is booked for December. Wychavon wants a precedent. Whitehall wants houses. The lawyers want lunch.
The council’s argument is that the government used the wrong window. Look at the year to March, they say, and the figure drops to 5.2%. Use that, and they are model pupils. Use 2023 to 2025, and they are rogues by the width of a planning notice. It is the civic version of being banned from the pub because of a round you bought two summers ago.
Fair enough, the country needs homes. Fair enough, some planning committees treat every new roof as a personal insult. But taking the vote away from elected people because a statistic wobbled over a line drawn at a nice round ten is the sort of precision that makes your brain itch. We cannot find a dentist, but we can measure Worcestershire to one decimal place.
If you are founding a breakaway planning committee of your own, Amazon will sell you a gavel. It will not restore your scheme of delegation. It will make a nice noise when the 10.7 comes in.
I do not expect the judges to settle the housing crisis in two days in December. I do expect someone to leave court explaining that 10.7 is basically 10 if you squint. Britain has always been good at this: when the official process feels deaf, we invent a smaller, louder one and give it a barrister. Point seven of a per cent. Remember that the next time a minister says they are only asking you to play your part.
The latest live stream is up, and it is the usual pile-up of British news that would not wait its turn. In this one: UK flights cancelled, a flasher tackled, and someone mili-banned. Plus the other headlines that wandered into the studio and refused to leave.
If you were one of the hundreds of thousands staring at a departure board that had given up, this is your recap with jokes attached. If you would rather stay grounded on purpose, Amazon will sell you a neck pillow for the next time Nats has a technical moment.
Watch the stream below. If the player sulks, the same video is on YouTube at youtube.com/@mrstevenallen. Tip the host on Ko-fi if the cancelled-flight energy feels familiar.
There was a time when the great battles of the school dinner were about whether you had to eat the skin on the custard. Now the Department for Education has decided the real crisis is deep fat. Not the kitchens that still look like 1987. Not the twelve year old who can smell a Greggs from the ring road. No. The menace is a chip that has met oil.
This is, we are told, the biggest shake-up of school food in England in more than a decade. From September 2027, primary schools will have to serve pulses such as lentils and chickpeas with a main meal at least once a week. Deep fried food is out. Chips may remain, but only if they have been baked, which is the culinary equivalent of being invited to a party and then sat in the hallway. Cake drops to once a week in primary and twice in secondary, and it must arrive with fruit, as if a slice of sponge becomes a vitamin the moment an orange sits next to it.
Breakfast clubs get their first proper rules too. Fried eggs and pastries off the menu. Cereals face a sugar cap, which is government speak for Coco Pops having a quiet word with HR. Schools must publish their menus online. Lucy Powell called the changes once in a generation. That is a lot of weight for a chickpea to carry.
The idea is simple. A third of children leave primary school overweight. Tooth decay is still the main reason five to nine year olds end up in hospital. Fair enough. Nobody is campaigning for more waffles as public policy. But compulsory lentils have the same energy as banning biscuits for adults. It sounds noble. The only guaranteed outcome is a thriving black market in smuggled sausage rolls and a generation who can spot a pulse at twenty paces and walk the other way.
Ministers promise the meals will be exciting. Schools minister Georgia Gould even said lentils are tasty, which is the sort of sentence that should be stress tested on a Year 8 before it leaves the building. If you would like to practise the new national dish at home, Amazon will sell you a kilo of red split lentils.
I do not doubt the fibre figures. I do doubt that a baked chip and a published menu will fix what happens after half three, when the same child meets a corner shop. Still, at least we have a timetable. Primaries first. Secondaries by 2028. Plenty of time for the lentil to become a personality, and for the rest of us to remember that we once survived school dinners that were brown, wet, and somehow still called stew.
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