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Search forStill whining on about mosquitoes
Friday, November 14, 2008, 07:00
Vivien Pengelly and her councillors were debating a proposal to ban the anti-teenager "Mosquito" device from all council buildings.
A whine is a hard noise to track down, as anyone who has tried to swat a mosquito (the six-legged type) will know. But I reckon this whine was coming from Peter Brookshaw, the Cabinet member for housing.
Brookshaw it was who caused the Mosquito (electronic type) furore earlier this year when he refused to accept a petition got up by the "Tamarside Six".
The Six, a group of schoolboys from Tamarside Community College, called for an investigation into the use of the Mosquito, which produces an irritating sound audible only by young people. It's widely used to clear the pavements of troublesome teens.
St Budeaux Labour councillor Sally Letcher helped the Six to try to present their petition to Brookshaw.
But Brookshaw snorted that he approved of Mosquitoes, didn't agree with the petition, and wasn't about to give it any house room in his office.
Suddenly, instead of the petition quietly gathering dust on a shelf, everyone was jumping up and down as though bitten by a… mosquito.
Plympton St Mary councillor David James set up a panel to take evidence from just about everyone, including Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England, who travelled down especially from London.
Before we beatify the Tamarside Six, it has to be said that they appear to have lost interest in the subject entirely. They couldn't even be persuaded to turn up at the inquiry in August.
David James's panel finally recommended that the council should ban Mosquitoes from its buildings. This would not affect private property as the devices are still quite legal.
Cut to … this week's Cabinet meeting, and that whine.
The outcome seemed pretty clear: a vote for a ban, or a vote against.
So you could have knocked me down with a mozzie wing when Mrs Pengelly screwed the lid back on the Deet and offered a third way: sending officers off to write another report.
My guess is that the whine was Brookshaw humming with pleasure at the thought of all that extra paperwork he'll be able to stuff down his trousers before he bends over for his caning.
Like the original mozzie, the electronic device has preferred to live in the shadows, so Plymouth's pioneering debate is welcome for the light it sheds. We so often start out seeing life in black and white, but the more we learn, the more shades of grey appear.
So it is with the Mosquito.
The city council has 22 of the devices in three buildings it owns in Whitleigh, and reckons to be saving £54,000 a year by preventing vandalism. The Mosquitoes there cannot be heard by anyone who isn't actually trespassing.
The council also owns two mobile Mozzies, and these have in the past been installed in more public places.
The Co-op uses Mosquitoes at some of its stores, but says they are only turned on to disperse troublemakers.
Some members of the public have been heard to say: "Where can I get one? I want to chase those annoying kids away."
Banning Mosquitoes on council property now would do little to spare the hearing of children and teenagers in public places, but would expose the Whitleigh properties to the minority of truly offensive yobs.
Where a ban really is needed – on shops and houses – is beyond the power of the council to legislate.
Perhaps the solution is a device that is offensive to all age groups – and fit it only in places that are off-limits to anyone.
Are you listening, Si Morris, director of Compound Security Systems (which invented the device)?
Alternatively, we could get Brookshaw to stand in the lobby of the Reatch Centre in Whitleigh – one of those now protected by Mosquitoes – and make that noise again.
PARKING attendants have been given a grandiose new title. They are now called Civil Enforcement Officers.
I'm imagining a young lad down Union Street on a Saturday night, chatting up some gullible blond.
"Hello darling. I'm CEO of the Theatre Royal," says the attendant from the city centre car park.
HILLSIDE School has gone down the same daft renaming avenue. The special school is now called "Brook Green Centre for Learning", which does absolutely nothing to enlighten us.
HARD on the news that Plymouth has been declared the third most sustainable city in Britain comes a story from the other side of the world.
New Plymouth, a small town on New Zealand's North Island, has won a United Nations-backed award as the world's "Most Liveable" city in its population category (20,001-75,000).
Must be something in the name.
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