honestlyreal

Ormskirk is a small market town in the very south-west of Lancashire. I grew up there. The most famous person to come from there in ages was my fellow-actor from the early 1980s, Jonathan Culshaw (we did pantos and musicals together: the only males under 35 in the local theatre group). It lies on the fault-line between the scousers to the south and west, and the woolies (Lancastrians) of the north and east. You hear both accents, and some odd hybrids, throughout the town. (Perhaps that helped Jon train his ear for accents?)

On a visit in February this year I took this picture:

It’s not a particularly great photo – but Burscough Street always had something special about it. In a town of fairly uniform ordinariness, it had the deli, the florist, the quirky gadget shop, the coaching inn and a few olde-worlde shops. It was pedestrianised ages ago, and in recent years small mews arcades had popped up beside it. It used to have this amazing cheese shop which though it’s long gone I could still smell just by standing in the street. Some hint of that was all I was trying to capture.

I looked at the photo more closely when I got back to Surrey. Something just wasn’t quite right. That sign. That huge yellow sign. I’ll be honest – had it been a wooden, hand-carved sign of the same size, above an antiquarian bookseller – I’d probably have let it go.

But it wasn’t. It was for a loan shop. Cheque cashing for those without bank accounts, or desperate for instant money, at a price. As well as being hideous, it sent a message: “This town is going downhill fast – best you do your shopping in Burscough or Southport, ‘ey?”

At least that was how I read it.

So. What to do? What not to do, for me anyway, was to pick up the phone to the local authority. I cared, but I certainly didn’t care enough to start a case involving different planning officers, people calling me back (or not) and most of all, one about which I would have to record progress (or not) myself.

I thought about FixMyStreet, but I really liked the case-tracking features of WhatDoTheyKnow.com, so I went for that. Couched as an FOI request, I made up what I thought would be useful questions to find out how this yellow monstrosity had been approved. Was it really an FOI matter? Probably not. Did I care? No. I have no expertise in planning matters, but I could really understand the WDTK interface and process, and most of all I could link to it to let others know what was going on if needed.

You can read the case progress yourself here, but it was fairly swift, and ended up with enforcement being carried out, and the sign replaced within a matter of weeks.

The reason for this blog post? Well, to tell the story – that literally five minutes of my time, from my home 250 miles away, resulted in something getting sorted out.

And a practical suggestion: it might be useful for others who’ve had similar experiences to tag them (whether on blogs, Flickr, Twitter or wherever) so that people can find them, draw inspiration and tips, or follow them up.

I’m suggesting the tag: fixedmystreet – #fixedmystreet on Twitter. Interested? Tell your friends.