The street that cut everything

[Space cat]

Did anybody else watch this? In the beginning, it looked like a genuine attempt to see how a street would cope without most of the services local councils provide but I soon began to smell a rat. I've lived in a street not unlike that one for 25 years and, in all that time, there has not been as much fly-tipping, graffiti and anti-social behaviour as the production team heaped upon the unfortunate residents in the short space of six weeks.

What was going on here? I began to suspect that the programme was a blatant piece of propaganda, rigged to demonstrate what an excellent job councils do. But it got worse. When the residents somehow managed to muddle through against the odds, the production team just kept making it worse, telling them that they would have to contribute towards services outside their own street while simultaneously cutting their budget.

In the end, they got what I suspect they wanted all along and we watched the street descent into chaos. This wasn't good TV at all; it was cheap, nasty TV reminiscent of Big Brother! What do you think?

 

[Mickymoody]

The BBC is highly propaganda it seems at present, as they waged war against government last year about the TV license..

So everything is dumbed down.

I admit, that I only caught glimpses of the programme, which seems true to the council chambers, arguing and strife, and wasting money doing stuff twice.

Other TV programmes to waste money on our behalf; Bargain Hunt, give people money to waste at auction, Show me the Monet? jeez! Any house search programme, at the end..are you going to buy...NO. The Apprentice..how air brained are people? Pointless gameshow - repeats, or repeats of questions already used, The One Show, what a waste of space. The list goes on.

 

[conny]

Mickey just about sums it all up.
What more is there to say?

 

[big-all]

it seemed fairly pointless to me
as you say they heap irellivant problems in one place
yes you will get get these problems in society but not in the leafy suburbs
you need a larger cross section with a deprived area included

it simply cannot work with such a small sample

taking the care or taxi costs out the kitty is ridiculous given planning this situation simply wont happen
whats next are they going to introduce police fire and ambulance and make them pay for that ??

what about the fact that most off the money for local services come from the central government

 

[Inky Pete]

They didn't put the money from central government into the kitty.

They took from the kitty the cost of services which are not paid for out of council tax anyway.

They deliberately picked an area and a street with relatively low property values - and therefore correspondingly low council tax money to put into the kitty.

They heaped ten years worth of fly tipping and dog fouling into six weeks.

They made the switch off of council services an abrupt cut-off without giving any chance to put alternatives in place first.

They used just one street, and just six weeks, for the "experiment", which they knew would mean that no private sector service providers would find it worth gearing up to step into the council's shoes and do a better job at a lower cost.

In short, a grubby little piece of propaganda from a corporation which knows that it is dependent on the TV Licence Tax - and as a result is running scared of any sort of cuts to public sector gravy train.

 

[Space cat]

Inky Pete pretty much says it all. I must admit that I never thought about the lack of government money in the kitty but I don't think it would have altered the outcome. I'm now convinced that the production team were hell bent on bankrupting the street anyway.

On reflection, I can see that they had preconceived ideas right from the outset. Why, for example, were they preoccupied with the idea that the residents should choose a leader? Even if you think that's a good way to go, telling them so is no way to conduct an experiment!

From the poll results so far, I see that somebody thinks it was an unbiased social experiment and only one thought it wasn't worth watching. I'm not sure which of those two votes is more believable.

 

[Mickymoody]

Big-all makes another good comment, council tax is shared for the emergency services too, but these weren't exempt from the experiment? In ye olde days, police didn't exist, and fire service was subscription only, had a plaque on the wall, if you didn't have one, they turned away, to leave the house to burn down? Ye olde Propaganda, as everyone seems to suggest.

 

[libby lou lou]

Ayone have a link/more info? thanks.

 

[joinerjohn]

Here ya go Lou Lou

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011dj30

 

[JamesA]

I think the government has told the BBC to chase viewers or they'll take the fee away.

There's so much of this stuff that uses the exact same formula with no actual content.

We record everything and watch it later.
On other channels you expect to skip the adverts and the stupid bits telling you what's about to happen, what's just happened and what will happen next time.

We're finding we do this more and more on the BBC...