PLACARD FEVER - LATEST

It can be so difficult explaining to a nimby the difference between public and private.

They're okay with the 'private' - i.e., belongs to them. But they struggle with the 'public' because they think that belongs to them as well.

Take this image, sent in recently. Somebody must have seen the Men-At-Work sign and assumed that it was theirs to deface.

The struggle to understand what is theirs and what isn't lies behind much of the windfarm debate.

For instance, several people seem to imagine that when they bought their houses in the Lenches - not so very long ago, in most cases - they also purchased a field several hundred metres away.

They don't really want that field (too much work), but they reserve the right to decide what happens in it.

In other words, it's not theirs. But they like to think that it is.

Similarly, there are some who believe that when they bought their house, they also bought the view. And that it would remain forever unchanged.

Who told them that??

No one owns a view.

Lenchwick Windfarm, when it is up and running, will cleanly and quietly generate enough electricity to power several thousand homes. Till then, though, we'll keep hearing from several dozen homes who think they own the area. Which they don't. And who think that the view (which they don't own) is more important, in the grand scheme of things, than those households which will be powered by the windfarm.

And more public property will be defaced by people who think that they own it.

So - a warning. Don't stand still for long in the Lenches. Someone is bound to think that you belong to them and stick a placard on you.