A Gated Community....

It has come to my attention that there are plans afoot to erect gates at both the Butcher's Row and Market Street entrance to the Pannier Market which will be locked up during the evening and night or when the market is not in use. In effect this means blocking off a part of a public highway and a thoroughfare that has been in existence since the existing old part of the town was laid out in medieval times. This road was initially the end of market street and the pannier market was built over the top of it some one hundred and fifty years ago, hundreds of years after it was originally laid out.
The reckoning behind this is that it will thwart bands of drunken brigands from marauding through the market of an evening causing untold thousands of pounds worth of damage per anumn by their acts of vandalism and urination and as condoms were once discovered I dare say copulation. Who'd have thought it. People weeing in the market and walking through there after a few drinks. Barum what's it coming to? Going to the dogs, at least that's what some people would have you believe. Of course, as a local lad who grew up in the town centre all I have to say is so what. Is it really a problem that requires such a draconian measure, closing off an ancient public highway, in order to resolve it.

To my mind these sort of nocturnal activities have been going on in this area for generations and generations. I dread to think what occurred in that part of town on market days in the 18th century, when Barum was a thriving port and when it wasn't only the farmers who bought there wares into town. I myself recall as a kid all sorts of things taking place in the rather insalubrious environs of the Market Street toilets and of an evening we local guttersnipes and tearaways would use the place as our sports hall playing British bulldog and that age old game of wellying a ball as hard as possible off the walls and off each other. I recall that it was also used as car park which provided rich pickings from chrome auto decals.

It is an ancient public space and should in these days of the privatization of urban centres it should remain so. Green Lanes shopping centre is locked at night but it shouldn't be really as it was built over the old Green Lane and this was another ancient thouroughfare. The people who manage the space also have the right to turn people away as I found out the other day when I was escorted out of Wilco's.

If such people whose solution to age old problems seems to be to lock things up, turn people away and gate themselves in and others out really want to continue with this sort of action why don't they just go the whole hog and petition the council to re-instate the old town gates. That should solve the problem of anti-social behaviour Instead of them existing these days solelyin the names of chain pubs and dodgy motels they could be resurrected. This would not only appease the store holders concerns, but also would satisfy those of us with an interest in our heritage and it would also provide
a tough sentence for those ne'r do wells who continue to flout the law, they could do their community service breaking rocks for the new gatehouses. That should make 'em think twice before the have a quick waz behind the telephone box in the pannier market.