only one in 10 council planning departments are fully staffed, with 13% operating with fewer than three-quarters of posts filled
with
80% [of local authorities] reporting they did not have enough officers to carry out their workload
because
long-term cuts to funding have had a visible impact on planning departments’ ability to retain staff… there has been a 43% fall in resources to the planning system from local authorities since 2009-10.
Here we are, seven years since the first Google Home speaker hit store shelves in 2016, and the virtual assistant space really isn’t much better. Sure, you can spot improvements if you look close enough — Continued Conversation was, in some ways, a game changer — but nowhere near where I hoped we’d be in this amount of...
Then stop disseminating this information online. For now.
You say you’re taking legal action. Hand all of this to your lawyer, and follow your lawyer’s advice. I am very confident they will advise you to stop posting this in a public forum.
In the meantime, I strongly urge you to talk to a trusted family member, friend, or medical professional. It sounds like you are highly stressed. In the short term, forget any perceived public health emergency. Take care of your own health first.
These accounts somehow were able to fully understand an incredibly complex story in less than 10 minutes
What is easily understandable, in far less than 10 minutes, is that a) this is incredibly hard to follow, and b) your mass-posting this everywhere does not comes across well.
If, as you allude to, you have retained legal counsel, I urge you to ask them if posting this all over the place and getting into internet bunfights is likely to impact your case… and I also urge you to follow their advice when they advise you to stop.
Following the investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme into Brand’s alleged behaviour, published earlier this month, Olivia says she tracked down a recording of the programme.
The episode, which aired on 21 June, 2008, features this exchange between Brand and Matt Morgan.
This exchange on The Russell Brand Show was recorded minutes after the incident
Morgan: It’s been 25 minutes since he showed his willy to a lady.
Brand: (Laughing) Very easy to judge! Very easy to judge!
Morgan: The receptionist…
Brand: (Laughing) Look…
Morgan: Receive this!
Morgan adds: “He got told off for ringing a bell, minutes later he’s showing his willy.” Brand can be heard laughing in the background.
Olivia, who has never worked as a receptionist, says she felt disgusted when she heard it.
So I have an ulcer. I dry heave at least once a day and I haven’t eaten in 21 days. (Please do not give me advice, I hate it, I don’t want medical advice from people over the internet. At best, if you do, I’ll respond with a “thanks.”)...
It’s not very good now that the Tories have starved it of funds for over a decade with a view to selling it off.
In 2005, Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party was co-authored Jeremy Hunt Michael Gove, David Gauke, and Kwasi Kwarteng, among others.
On page 78, it states that
Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision, in effect denationalising the provision of health care in Britain.
And on page 74 asserts that
patients, either through the tax system or by way of universal insurance, [should] purchase health care from the provider of their choice
Wow. Patients given choice? Perish the thought! You should be forced to have mediocre healthcare, peasant!
Do you think private healthcare is illegal in the UK or something? Have you not heard of people going private?
It is a bold move to say that “Tories want to privatise nationalised services” is a conspiracy theory, given the number of times they have already done it.
British Aerospace
British Gas
British Airways
British Petroleum (BP)
All 10 Regional Water Authorities
National Power
British Rail
Royal Mail
The National Probation Service
The Forensics Science Service
ETA: They also tried it with the Forestry Commission.
It was thought that British Rail was so beloved that no one would dare sell that off, too.
Em, no. No it isn’t. Private healthcare gets to cherry pick off all the more straightforward stuff (knee replacements, dermatology) but curiously enough is quite content for the NHS to handle all the expensive stuff (intensive care, trauma).
It took over 40 years to privatise everything on that list. Not exactly “fairly quick”.
Feel free to consider it “scaremongering bollocks” all you like, but be aware that government ministers literally wrote a book about how much they want to do it.
And be aware everyone thought that British Rail would never be privatised, either. But of course it was. After it had been run into the ground through underfunding.
I’m requesting for recommendations for games that stand out from the rest in their genre, and not in the sense of being the best game in that niche but actually bringing something new and innovative to the table. I’ve not had much experience in gaming, but I have a few games to give you a hint on what I am talking about:...
Britain’s second-biggest city effectively declared itself bankrupt on Tuesday, shutting down all nonessential spending after being issued with equal pay claims totaling up to £760 million ($956 million)....
For non-UK readers: UK councils have limited revenue-raising powers compared to local government in other countries, and rely on 3 sources of income:
Central government grants
Council tax (on residential properties)
Business rates (on commercial properties)
This amounts to c. 7% of the total UK tax base, versus c. 32% collected locally in Germany or 50% collected locally in Canada.
Central government grants were cut by 40% in real terms between 09/10 and 19/20 from £46.5bn to £28.0bn.
Council tax has gone up 30% over the same period, but it can’t go up more than 2% annually without passing a referendum (unlikely). Some councils in dire straits have recently been allowed to raise it 5%.
Local authorities have been underfunded for over a decade. Other UK councils which have already declared bankruptcy, either through running out of money, or through losing vast amounts of money in risky schemes attempting to replace missing central funding:
Equal pay is something women have had to fight for.
In this case,
the court found hundreds of mostly female employees working in roles such as teaching assistants, cleaners and catering staff missed out on bonuses which were given to staff in traditionally male-dominated roles such as refuse collectors and street cleaners.
Women in the UK only gained the right to equal pay in 1970.
You can only starve a government body of funding – making it muddle along depleting its reserves and selling off assets – for so long until a final bill tips it over the edge, so I’d argue that if it wasn’t this bill it would be another bill.
Other councils took risky approaches to replace money cut under Austerity:
Woking said that against its available core funding of £16m in the 2023-24 financial year, the council faced a deficit of £1.2bn.
Racked up to finance the building and acquisition of a vast empire of commercial assets, its investments included a complex of sky-high towers – standing as the tallest buildings outside a big city in England – including a four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.
Many councils piled into property and other commercial enterprises to raise money to fill gaping holes in their budgets and to undertake regeneration projects after sharp cuts to central government funding introduced under the Conservatives’ austerity drive.
“Not having enough money to make what you are renting out safe for occupancy” is not an acceptable defence to renting out something that is unsafe for occupancy.
Approximately 18,000 Airbnbs in the UK do not have smoke detectors and nearly 65,000 have no carbon monoxide alarms, according to figures from analysts AirDNA.
Shocking. Safety regulations are written in blood.
Growth in home-sharing through Airbnb contributes to about one-fifth of the average annual increase in U.S. rents and about one-seventh of the average annual increase in U.S. housing prices.
Those struggling renters might not be struggling so much if other people renting out their apartments on AirBnB weren’t pushing up their rent by an extra 20%.
Housing markets have problems. AirBnB is not a responsible solution to those problems.
I don’t think that’s an ideal analogy. No-one sells meth legally.
It’s more like selling people food prepared in your uninspected and potentially unsanitary kitchen, and complaining about being told to comply with the food hygiene regulations that every licensed business is required to adhere to.
I find this viewpoint fascinating. Like arguing that trying to put out a burning building will hurt poor people trying to keep warm.
The housing market as a whole is the problem, one which AirBnB is exacerbating. That it locally enriches those renters able to find people willing to rent out their homes – which I’m guessing is disproportionately going to be people without elderly family members & kids – doesn’t mean it isn’t detrimental to the housing market as a whole, particularly at the lower end, and to everyone who rents.
I understand that. OP expressly described this basement experience as “renting out spare rooms”, though, so I hope you’ll understand why I’m treating this as a spare room being rented out.
I live in London and am very familiar with the issue of affordable self-contained accommodation being flipped into overpriced Airbnb units, and I would agree with you that such units should be retained as residential housing.
In this specific instance, I suspect it is because there is every indication that the basement room rented by OP was not, in fact, a fully self contained suite within a house, but was a guest room.
How do you physically get into these “basement suites” in your part of the world? When I lived in a townhouse, access to the cellar was via a door in the middle of the property leading off the kitchen. There would be no practical way to split the cellar off from the main property as a separate dwelling. But having guests sleep down there every so often was no big deal.
Interesting. Here, when conversions happen to make cellars into self-contained units, I’d argue they are frequently only suitable for short term lets, on the basis that no-one should have to live like that. In converting properties whose lower ground floors were never meant to be used for residential purposes into housing, we get stuff like this.
Rental Opportunity of the Week: A Remodelled Crypt, for GothsYour own windowless basement in London Bridge, for just £2,000 a month.
It goes for £2000 a month ($2500) and is in Zone 1, a 25 minute stroll from the London Stock Exchange. You aren’t going homeless if you have £2000 a month to spend on rent, and Zone 2 is one stop away on the Jubilee line. You’re moving to Zone 2/3, or moving into a flatshare. Or out of London.
Given the location, pricing and finish I suspect it’s more likely to be used as a pied a terre – a second (weekday) home – for someone in the City.
They increase the overall cost of both buying and renting a property within that market, and are a nuisance for existing residents.
Historically – in the UK, at least – the market equilibrium has been that the rich own all the property and the poor pay rent until they die, aware that they can be served an eviction notice at any time.
This has not proven to be a popular policy. In 1918 all British men, regardless of whether they owned property or not, got the vote, and since then politicians have found it useful to not have the majority of voters perpetually furious about it.
Yes, I’ve read many posts the current state of reddit. But today, somehow I thought it can’t be that bad if I just go looking for some funny videos....
All the top posts on r/askwomennocensor seem to be women complaining about how the sub is overrun with men asking for dating tips, with the mods stating in a thread 16 days ago:
We remove a thing, and suddenly we get called fascist, tyrant, “chronically online,” etc., and members wildly upvote those public callouts.
Yall gotta decide if yall want “fascist tyrants” or to be plagued with inane incel questions. We remove a dating question? “Tyrants!” We let it go? “Why is this sub so trashy?”
As one redditor notes:
I know this sub was created because the other asksubs have so many rules. But this is unfortunately one of the reasons why so many rules exist.
“Female” as an adjective isn’t the problem. The problem is “female” as a noun.
You can describe a person as being female all you like, but if you start calling them “a female” & defined purely in terms of the existence of their sex organs, you’re in the wrong.
London apartment block that deviates from plans must be torn down, says council (www.theguardian.com)
The age of smart displays is coming to a premature end (www.androidpolice.com)
Here we are, seven years since the first Google Home speaker hit store shelves in 2016, and the virtual assistant space really isn’t much better. Sure, you can spot improvements if you look close enough — Continued Conversation was, in some ways, a game changer — but nowhere near where I hoped we’d be in this amount of...
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Russell Brand: Woman says star exposed himself to her then laughed about it on Radio 2 show (www.bbc.co.uk)
Hand and tea towels
Do you have separate hand and tea towels in the kitchen, or do you use any type of towel to dry dishes?...
‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners (www.theguardian.com)
Can we talk about how much the American healthcare system sucks?
So I have an ulcer. I dry heave at least once a day and I haven’t eaten in 21 days. (Please do not give me advice, I hate it, I don’t want medical advice from people over the internet. At best, if you do, I’ll respond with a “thanks.”)...
How many people actually dropped Reddit for Lemmy?
It is possible to estimate?
Suella Braverman pushes for ban on American bully XLs after attack (www.theguardian.com)
'Ritual mass murder' report in Chapel St Leonards was yoga class (www.bbc.co.uk)
Looking for games with unique core mechanics
I’m requesting for recommendations for games that stand out from the rest in their genre, and not in the sense of being the best game in that niche but actually bringing something new and innovative to the table. I’ve not had much experience in gaming, but I have a few games to give you a hint on what I am talking about:...
China wants to ban clothes that 'hurt nation's feelings' (www.bbc.com)
A draft law sparks debate with locals calling it excessive and questioning how it would be enforced.
Britain's second-largest city effectively declares itself bankrupt amid $950 million equal pay claims | CNN Business (www.cnn.com)
Britain’s second-biggest city effectively declared itself bankrupt on Tuesday, shutting down all nonessential spending after being issued with equal pay claims totaling up to £760 million ($956 million)....
Airbnb bookings dry up in New York as new short-stay rules are introduced (www.theguardian.com)
Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental...
I didn't believe some of the stories about the current state of Reddit. I was wrong. (old.reddit.com)
Yes, I’ve read many posts the current state of reddit. But today, somehow I thought it can’t be that bad if I just go looking for some funny videos....