A local meeting for local people

Last night I attended a meeting of local residents in the back room of a nearby pub. Why was this? Let me tell you.

Engineering firm, Siemens, has been contracted by one of the rail companies to build a 24 hour train cleaning and refuelling facility off the train tracks near where I live. It would be on the site of an exisiting, smaller refuelling point. Currently the planning application has not yet been approved by the council, and residents have put in many objections to the application on the grounds of increased noise, pollution, traffic and potential negative impact to house prices. There are also zoning type issues which I shan't get into here.

So last night some of the management of the company had come down to meet us and discuss our objections, as well as updating us on the status of the application. And since it was in a pub, we could all have a quiet pint whilst they were speaking.

There were four of them from The Company - three middle aged execs and a Pretty Girl (cunning ploy there - who could believe a Pretty Girl could be involved in evil schemes?). There were also a couple of local councillors and about thirty to forty residents. And a chap from Radio York.

Now from listening to them give their presentation, you'd come away with the following conclusions:
- The new development will in fact be quieter than the current one.
- Road traffic will not be substantially increased.
- There's nothing to worry about.
- This is a great idea for everyone.

Which could all be true. But it is hard to tell whether they are
a) Trustworthy, honest people, doing their job in a way that causes minimal impact to the local environment, perhaps even improving things a little.
b) Evil corporate slaves, who are just trying to placate the local primitives so that the project can start on time and they'll get their bonuses.

I'd like to think it's a).

They also had contact numbers of residents' associations in other areas that are near similar developments that we could talk to and find out how lovely things would be (But they could be just fake people lying on the phone!). They even offered to take us out to other facilities to see how little impact they have (and I expect, instead, they'd take us to an isolated field and murder our bodies until they were dead!).

Although they answered many of the questions put to them, there were still some issues left outstanding, including perhaps most importantly, is this really an appropriate site given it's proximity to residential areas and the future plans the council has for the area? And even though noise levels are expected to reduce, many of the people (who are nearer than me) feel they are unacceptable to begin with, so a reduction may not be good enough.

Anyway, things'll probably work out. And I get more noise from cars than I do from the trains anyway.

There were a lot of people there who knew a hell of a lot about trains and the rail network. It was like they'd actually spent time researching the issues and reading the planning application.

On the way out, I narrowly avoided talking to the man from Radio York. I'd have probably said something like "Well they seemed like thoroughly nice chaps, and it was jolly nice of them to come all the way up here to visit us, I'm sure everything will work out alright. People do moan a bally lot, don't they! Anyway, got to go, I'm late for my quiz. Tally ho!". That is potentially not what they would have wanted to hear.

Expect further details on our progress on this matter in the new year.

PS: I'm not dead!