What's all this elected mayors rubbish?

[AJS-]

DonkeyApple said:

It's utter madness isn't it. Across the whole UK for decades we've been throwing borrowed money away like this.

It makes you sick.

It's all the more strange just how mental Yorkshire has gone on these projects. So much for it being the English bastion of common sense when it came to money.

My great uncle was a mayor of Wakefield and the family ran the local confectioners, grocers and tea shop. The place used to be run by Quakers. It's clearly changed a little.

Thailand is way better at stuff like this. Just around the corner from my new house there was a guy putting some street lights in. Very simple concrete base supporting a metal pole with an ordinary outside lamp on top, such as you might put on your gatepost or porch.

Apparently the council didn't do it, so they'd had a wip around on the street and decided to put their own in for a grand total of about £200. I have no idea how much it costs to light a street in the UK, but I'm fairly sure £200 wouldn't get you planning permission, which would take a year to start with, and if someone turned up saying it might disturb an owl's sleep patterns then it would never happen at all.

In a way I blame this cult of experts. The simplest of things have to be sanctioned by someone who is a professional in it, where as in the real world it's not that difficult.