On 2006-11-09 12:31:01 +0000, Adrian said:

Andy Hall ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :
You missed my point.

That was not about the merits or demerits of Conservation Areas

Fine.

but about the behaviour of people who would seek to snitch on their
neightbours to petty bureaucrats.

A conservation area lives or dies SOLELY on the enforcement. Given that
we don't disagree about the merits of the concept, we are only
disagreeing about the method of enforcement, right?

So - I repeat... Would you rather have local residents provide the
council with the information leading to that inforcement or would you
rather pay in your council tax for council staff to patrol in search of
breaches?

I would rather have a set of rules (and this is important) agreed by a
majority of residents in the proposed area and consistently operated
using a supplement to the council tax paid for by people in those
areas. If it has value, then people should be willing to pay for that
value.

This is not what happens. The reality is that the whole thing is at
the behest of petty bureaucrats.
That's wrong.