Numbers game

Unlike this week's Advertiser, yesterday's Glossop Chronicle doesn't treat us to a report of the Pre-Inquiry meeting. In fact, the tables set aside for the press on Tuesday were strangely empty. It's even more odd given that the offices of the Reporter Group Newspapers are a 2 minute walk away.

But to compound this odd behaviour, there's a large article this week on the relative pro and anti bypass petitions on the PM's website which we highlighted in an earlier post. And clearly, some people read the paper, because the numbers on either are rising.

Longdendale Siege Mentality (their new name around here) do have a long way to go though. This is because the latest figures for letter of objection and support for the bypass have been published, though not as openly as the Highways Agency proclaim in this letter (which the wind blew into our hand). Indeed, at the date of writing, the information is yet to be displayed on their Freedom of Information pages, as promised (presumably because it doesn't suit what they're trying to achieve at the PI). So we thought we'd help them ease their workload a little.

Here it is then:

Objections: 2601
Supporters: 1377

You may remember that in June last year, the numbers in press releases were roughly 1400 objections and 1000 supporters. That gave us nearly 60% then, and we now have 65%. But whereas we have increased our objections by 85%, Siege have managed only 37% (the fact that we didn't rely on a couple of dodgy looking old blokes shuffling door to door in Mottram to try to chat people up might have helped).

Of course, this may only be a Pyrrhic & moral victory at this stage, but unless Siege enlist the help of all Top Gear petrol heads and congestion charge petition types for their pm.gov.uk petition, we think we have won this particular argument...