Little known fact: if nobody will pay £850,000 for your house, it's not worth £850,000.

Grateful for this as it reminded me to check the routes.

Pleased to discover the Leeds Manchester route is passing a mile or two from home. I think a perch on West Nab should give a good aerial view of the "Côte de Meltham".

To my Lord Treasurer’s, thinking to have spoken about getting money for paying the Yards; but we found him with some ladies at cards: and so, it being a bad time to speak, we parted.

April 16,1993.( A long time ago in galaxy far,far away - well in Wigan)
Visceral eye witness embedded frontline #RugbyLeague reportage from #LeedsOtherPaper raconteur nonpareil #TheManInTheStand
#Castleford @rememberlop.bsky.social

The 1985 Local Government Act had its first reading the prior November. What would be the point in holding off on the petulance when the government had already decided to wreck city governance?

Can't happen, NISTA would write a report reminding everyone that infrastructure decisions should never be politically motivated.

Trevor Phillips said on Sky News this morning that "everybody in the country who could read a newspaper" knew in advance of the Mandelson appointment that he was problematic

is this the same Phillips who interviewed Mandelson on October 08 2023 and didn't ask any questions about Epstein friendship?

Police treating arson attack as antisemitic hate crime It comes as a man attempts to ignite a plastic bag containing containing fluid in north-west London.

And another one.

It would be nice — albeit a triumph of hope over experience — to think we had vocal allies right about now.

I don't think anything in the column is untrue apart from the "unplanned streetscape *is* liberalism" hypothesis but it's just about universal long standing anti-urban tropes that are in no way London specific.

You can probably find evidence to do this take for pretty much any big town.

My own town of Huddersfield is simultaneously an unmoored multicultural hellscape where Muslim rape gangs roam free and the home of flag shagging racists depending on which online idiot is typing.

That Janan Ganesh column saying London embodies liberalism because of unplanned, aggregate development is just a metropolitan form of "We thank bus drivers and talk to strangers here" discourse.

New railway bridges make me so happy.

Interesting article that suggests the initial wave of borderers shipped over to the plantation were "nominally catholic. In practice...Godless".

historyireland.com/sheep-steale....

My surname makes people laugh – so I turned it into a research communication tool Having my surname is a daily trial, eliciting a range of responses from suppressed to open laughter and unsolicited comments.

One of the nicest academics you'll meet. Great piece - and I look forward to listening to the radio show (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...)

How A Secret Government Report Delayed Leeds' Long-Awaited Trams The long wait in Leeds for a tram network was recently extended yet again. Noah Vickers uncovers the real reasons for the latest delay

This is super interesting for a bunch of reasons but the suggestion from NISTA that West Yorkshire's tram proposals are based “around a political agenda rather than a recognised programmatic approach” is particularly revealing.
www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Should it really be that surprising that an elected politician with a democratic mandate to build a tram is pushing for a tram to be built? Only if you view elected mayors and strategic authorities not as sub-national governments but as delivery vehicles for Westminster-designed policies.

Map of England and Wales as a grey background with dots overlaid on England for each of the 34000 LSOAs. The majority of dots are shades of green indicating a positive correlation between deprivation and no-car households. As would be expected in a map of LSOAs, dots are concentrated in centres of population. There are a few small pockets of orange dots most notably in central London.

Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) allows us to compare no-car access with deprivation more locally, showing the correlation is positive for most of the country (green), but with small pockets showing a negative correlation (orange). [6/8]

Why are we being so cautious?

Because of the big fucked up project!

So who are we going to ensure this one isn't fucked up?

The guys who fucked the fucked up project!

Why?

Smart guys! Brilliant guys! Not like those fucking hicks!

How A Secret Government Report Delayed Leeds' Long-Awaited Trams The long wait in Leeds for a tram network was recently extended yet again. Noah Vickers uncovers the real reasons for the latest delay

The opportunity cost of allowing national government to extend their remit beyond the proper realms of lawmaking, macroeconomics, foreign policy and defence.

www.politicshome.com/news/article...

This is what I don't understand about the claim that Bus Rapid Transit would have a better BCR, where are the fully segregated roads that this BRT system would require?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Growing up in Halifax (though prob before tutoring became commonplace) the kids who went to the local independent always held a certain reputation.

When the LA was determined to preferentially fund, and socially segregate, the relatively privileged, paying for made a fairly clear statement.

Always good to see a comment about grammar schools inevitably degrade to a discussion about Fond Memories College Oxbridge in record time.

You can see the difference between Halifax and Huddersfield (twin communities in many ways) on the Sutton opportunity index map.

www.suttontrust.com/opportunity-...

I know a couple of families whose kids go/went to HX grammars from outside the area and more within Calderdale. Don't think any of them would be fee payers but it's still a terrible system that resulted in situations like the Ridings school being branded Britain's worst school.

Is it, though?

Why would you want this when you could have some council funded artist workshops closed much of the week and of interest to a tiny section of the populace the rest of the time.

The scheme to allow the "meanwhile uses" of shops due for demolition by art groups was called Temporary/Contemporary the fact it isn't permanent is in the name.

Think tank Same Skies proposes counter strategy to save Huddersfield's Piazza Centre from demolition - Huddersfield Hub Kirklees Council plans to the demolish the Piazza Centre but a Huddersfield think tank is proposing a new future

From the same people who brought you "trying to lose funding for the market redevelopment" here comes "perpetually indulge artists in semi derelict shopping centres rather than a nice park for the people"

huddersfieldhub.co.uk/think-tank-s...

Odd the things that give me pleasure, but it's great to see that NLS have made a much better quality version of the first series Yorkshire 246 six inch sheet available. Back when you could have a game of bowls before catching the train 😀
maps.nls.uk/view/266665654