Over-budget

We had a very interesting & suitably ironic visit today - budget day - which we'd like to tell you about.

It was a fleeting visit from renowned accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). They'd been searching the internet for the "public enquiry (sic) mottram" and landed on a blog item about the Public Inquiry.

Now this could be just a bored employee idling away some time at work, but then again, maybe someone has called the auditors in? One way or another, we'd love to find out exactly how much the Public Inquiry has cost, and how much our dear friend John Watson the Inspector has been paid for 15 days work. 

Watch this space.

'Hyder Consulting Crap'

...not our words, but those of a recent visitor to the blog who had been searching the internet, presumably for people with no good words to say about the Management Consultants employed to work on the bypass. How apt then that they landed here.

The searcher was using a computer belonging to Cantillon Capital Management, who are listed as as Independent Financial Advisers. Perhaps they'd just seen the new costings for the bypass (which we exclusively revealed last week - yet to be taken up by the press, though we did tell them).

One's thing's for sure - Hyder Consulting don't need financial advice - under the official figures, along with Carillion, they've so far been paid £9.5 million for producing an error-strewn, crappy scheme.

Glossopdale supermarket sweep part 1: Lidl

Keen readers of the Glossop Advertiser will have noticed an astounding advert in this week's edition. The German supermarket giant Lidl have announced that they plan to apply for planning permission for a store on the site of the former Vauxhall Garage at Brookfield, Hadfield.

They're holding an Open Day opposite the site at Glossop Antiques Centre (who have clearly been bought!) next Thursday 15th May between 1 - 4 p.m.

What's astounding about this advert is that we usually hear about things like this in the press because a planning application has been lodged. But in the High Peak, and Glossopdale in particular, there are more and more examples of things like this taking place (as we will show in other articles to follow). As we write, there is no planning application from Lidl on HPBC's website.

Can you imagine that Lidl are taking a huge chance, being cocky, pre-emptive? We doubt it - the recent planning history of this area has shown how High Peak Borough Council's response to advances from developers is to bend over obligingly. And this looks like yet another example where permission has been 'pre-approved'.

There are may good reasons to oppose this idiotic plan. Firstly, the area does not need any more supermarkets. There are enough, and they are destroying the area. They do nothing for the area other than provide minimum wage jobs which have a high turnover rate - not needed in an area where there is full employment. Furthermore, every penny spent there goes out of the community, not into it.

Secondly, the traffic problems that will result will be hugely significant (there's no need to expand on that, surely?).

Thirdly, the way Lidl treats it's staff is appalling. Read here for details and reference points, and this excellent article from the Guardian in March of this year has extensive details. Other reasons can be found on this excellent German flier (opens PDF).

What's becoming more and more clear in this part of Glossopdale is that developers are keenly eyeing the area with the Glossop Spur in mind. First Rossington Park, then the Home farm hotel/Travelodge and now this plan (as well as activity in Glossop itself) all show that the objective that High Peak Borough Council are colluding in is to to turn the A57 in Glossopdale into a long retail strip easily accessed from the motorway network.

We'll be watching this one like a hawk, and doing our bit to oppose it. By any means necessary.

**Update 13/05/2008: Lidl themselves landed today on this blog post after searching Google for 'glossop & lidl' - everybody wave!

Friends in high places...

Our ongoing series of features on visitors to the blog shows that certain folk are being sought out by one of the biggest engineering & road building firms in the UK. Perhaps they know something that we don't about Carillion? It seems that after years of being courted by Carillion (who even turn up at their meetings), Costain are searching the internet for the Longdendale Siege Committee and Mike Flynn - see the screen grab from our sitemeter here.

How ironic they landed on our site and not the official abortion of a website that our old friend Bob Haycock is responsible for...happy hunting roadmunkeys!

John Watson's Worldwide Fanclub

Older readers of this blog may well remember the joke we had at the expense of the Inspector John Watson prior to the commencement of the Public Inquiry last year. We'd rumbled his textbook on road building and called for a book signing session on his behalf.

And he even commented upon our blog at the Pre-Inquiry Meeting:

I have written a textbook called Highway Construction and Maintenance which was last revised in 1994. You can still buy it, should you wish to. I will not be signing copies today because it is out of date, apart from anything else. (page 7, lines 9-12)

(Much to hoots of laughter & applause from the members of Siege Mentality who were present - not recorded in the transcript. The joke's on them anyway)

OK, it was a joke - but why not? After all, one or two visitors to the blog over the past few weeks have been seeking out this tarmac-junky-tome for far-flung shores. Here's one from Jakarta and another from Dubai.

Of perhaps John's on holiday and is looking himself up?

Carillion's big visit

Around the time of the visits to the blog about James Purnell last week, we had one particular visit that really stood out. Carillion - contractors for the bypass (and not an 80s prog-rock group) - spent a lot of time on this blog, checking all the contributors out (to no avail) and also trawling through our archive. Yes, they spent nearly 90 minutes here.

If only they knew the time (and money) we spent trying to get the correct matching typeface to détourne their logo (info for font nerds: ITC Giovanni).

Lots & lots of visitors...

Well well well. It seems we've attracted a lot of attention today from lots of different quarters, and mostly all landing on the same post. Guess which one?

It seems that lots of interesting visitors are into the story about Purnell, Parker-Perry & Co. What's helped is being linked to from a very popular weblog. But the devil is in the details, so let's press on.

Firstly, 3 visits from the Houses of Parliament. Here, here and here. Friends coming to mourn, or foes gathering for the feast?

Secondly, our natural enemies - Sean Parker-Perry himself and good old Tameside. Are you afraid Sean? Time to build up that Olive Air Freshener business (a feature is coming along soon...).

Thirdly, the media. So far, Associated Newspapers & British Sky Broadcasting. Yum!

It also looks likes vultures are sniffing around. Two PR firms have turned up - Randall's Parliamentary Service and 'Good Relations'. Time to make the call James, good job you sold the house, you may need the cash...

Purnell - scouring the Shire with his trusty 'staff'

We're way behind with things here. But we're slowly catching up on visitors, and going back a couple of weeks, we had a most intriguing visit.

It seems someone from Trader Media Ltd (an arm of the Guardian Media Group) had landed on our site after searching google with the phrase "Purnell's staff". Whatever could they mean?

Do they mean the mighty staff with which he is about to smite the most vulnerable sections of society (Nu Labour translation: "raising skills", "credible ladders of opportunity", "Arbeit Macht Frei" etc, ad nauseum)? Perhaps. Or were they looking for a pipsqueak (a now completely silent one at that). More likely.

The rest is a mystery to us. But watch this space.

Running scared?

Front page news in the local papers this week is the latest tactics in the raging battle being fought by the despoilers of Hadfield and the residents of Hadfield.

JD Williams, the mail order catalogue giant, seem to be running scared that local activists are kicking them where it hurts in acting against their crackpot scheme to make their unfeasibly ugly grey sheds even bigger. According to the Glossop Advertiser, the company is asking it's employees to write in to High Peak Borough Council's Planning Dept in support of their application whilst passing themselves off as residents. This all sounds like stories coming out of Russia during the recent election, where Vladimir Putin's party had made civil servants an offer they couldn't refuse: vote for us or get the sack.

It gets better - today, they landed on our site, searching Google with the words 'high-peak (sic) planning hadfield'. Even more ironic, they landed on our recent article about the local anti-Del Boy, Trevor Mooney.

The consultation date has already ended for this application, but the Committee date is 14th January 2008, and we hope that a charabanc will wend it's way to the Council Offices at Chinley to tell HPBC's grey shed-loving nutters where to stick it. There's a more recent opportunity for similar fun this coming Monday (17th December), when further applications for de(re)generation will be heard from Rossington Park and Bridge Mills.

Forewarned is forearmed

Are our suspicions about Trevor Mooney's plans for Dinting Road being confirmed? A visitor to the blog today is worth taking notice of.

Regus provide 'commercial real estate' for companies. In other words, if you're a business and want to rent an office and facilities, they provide it. Let their own words tell you a bit more of what they're about:

Companies of all sizes use Regus solutions to reduce costs and remove the burden of property ownership and management and to have a workplace to suit however they want to work.

Today, more than half of the Fortune 500, along with thousands of small- and medium-sized companies, are outsourcing some part of their office requirements to Regus.

Regus office space, meeting rooms, training rooms and conference rooms are located at premier addresses in city centers, central business districts or business parks with convenient access to major airports or public transportation.

Regus...maintains an aggressive growth strategy.

Regus Group plc is registered in England with company number 4868977 and its registered office is at 3000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0RS, UK.

And the latter address confirms it's our visitor, if you look at the detailed search engine results. Their search term in Google? - "brownfield site in Dinting". Trevor Mooney must be licking his lips.

With all this local hostility to SCC, Rossington Park and the Bypass, we wonder if they know what they're letting themselves in for?

Latest in the roll call of visitors

We love it when our enemies visit. So after our recent post in which we mentioned how 2 of the UK's biggest roadbuilding firms are looking to consolidate into one mega-company, Carillion (not to be confused with the 1980s prog-rockers, Marillion) popped by today.

The best bit is that they landed on the label 'cynical bastards', presumably to look at the good company they are keeping.

Look who's looking...

Good old Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft clearly like to keep an eye on what's being said about them (click on image for full details).

Look who came to dinner!

There are times when you know you're obviously having an effect due to the type of visitors you're getting.

And yesterday, we had a visit from one of the biggest villains in terms of roadbuilding - Balfour Beatty. To make it even sweeter, they weren't just browsing - they were looking for us (via Google). Our reputation is clearly spreading far and wide...

Shit rolls downhill...

Well, we have the Houses of Parliament visiting us today. And when you look how they arrived at us and what they were looking for (click through image to see the full screen grab), it would suggest a few possibilities:

1) Someone is in the shit, as news travels of his adventures on the internet

2) Said person is on an away-day to Parliament

Even more interestingly, we had the Guardian Media Group visit us yesterday too, so I'd like to think it's the former. We'll see...

More visitors

After the Prime Minister's Office popped in a few weeks ago, we're now getting visits from our principal opponents. Today, it's the turn of Mouchel Parkman, who stopped by twice today.

This is the crew that TMBC and Derbyshire CC employed to produce an Environmental Statement for the Glossop Spur, which was the subject of much debate on Tuesday. This is because it's now out of date and there currently doesn't seem to be any reliable data for the environmental impacts of the Bypass & Spur together, so the boys and girls at MP must be hard at work trying to scrape something together for their deadline.

So much so that they've decided to concentrate of the real work of building a road instead, and promptly left this blog to head over to Amazon, perhaps to get hold of John Watson's "text book" (his words on Tuesday).

Tin-Foil Hat at the ready

In case anyone else was in any doubt whatsoever, the last post was largely humourous. Whilst it is true that the site meter showed a visit from the PM's office, I am fully aware that the 'Office' in this case is the institution (rather than the room that Tony Blair sits in), and no doubt a lot of people work for it, some of whom are bored enough to find us, rather than having any malevolent intent.

The reason I mention it is because a rival weblog has emerged (more of which later) which has lapooned my post as a pseudo-conspiracy theorists case of over-inflated egotism. Or something. Except the poster is so inarticulate that the blog is virtually sub-literate and reads ridiculously. Indeed, as shit websites go, it ranks alongside that of the Longdendale Siege Committee.

Yet whilst it would be fun to post the link to the site here, doing so would only help the site's Google rankings at the expense of ours, which are doing very nicely thank you. Indeed, having a generous 2 links from this site means that our rankings on Technorati have shot up by 1 million (yes one million!) overnight. Having no links to your site means Google oblivion, as he/she is finding out.

But if you really want a laugh, go to the comments section of the last post and have a look at the link provided. It really is fantastic entertainment.

Oh, and by the way Mr roadmunkey (with a non existent email address). Bacofoil is a brand - tin-foil hat is the phrase you're after.

If you think you know who 'roadmunkey' is, send your answers on a (e)post card. We have our own ideas...

Big Brother is watching you

Well, we've hit the big time. This afternoon, we had a visit from Tone's office. I bet our good friend Cllr McKeown's jealous - we're not even in the Labour Party and the government's looking at us!

We must be doing something right. Whilst we're on the subject, we've also had visits from Tarmac Plc, but strangely yet to hear from TMBC. Shit rolls downhill I guess...