Everybody’s doin’ a brand new walk now,
(Come on baby, do the local motion)
I know you’ll get to like it if you give it a chance now,
(Come on baby, do the local motion)
My little baby sister can do it with ease,
It’s easier than learning your A B Cs,
So come on, come on, do the local motion with me.
Sorry folks, couldn’t resist it. Darlington Borough Council have managed to squeeze a new grant out of hard pressed tax payers via the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund – and they’re using it to fund a ‘Local Motion Adviser’.
What does a Local Motion adviser do to justify a ‘Sustainable Transport’ grant – well, it turns out they teach you how to walk to your destination. Be fair, what could be more sustainable than Shank’s Pony?
You have until 9th March to grab one of 8 opportunities to sound like Little Eva, going door to door singing ‘Come on Baby, do the local motion with me’ for £8 an hour…
37 hours per week (March – October)
Salary: Grade H (£8.00 – £8.32 per hour)
Post Ref Number: D12731
Number of Posts: up to 8
Temporary until 31/10/2014
Darlington Borough Council has been successful in its bid for funding through the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund. Over the next three years we will be rolling out an extensive programme of events, activities and information in schools, workplaces and in the local community.
The Travel Advisors will provide information and advice on walking, cycling and using buses and trains. Much of this work will involve calling at houses within an area, engaging in a conversation about how people currently travel and identifying where there are opportunities to make changes to help people get fitter, save money or reduce their carbon footprint.
Tip of the Raccoon tail to TaxPayers Alliance.
SBML is the landlord of the Raccoon Arms. He lives North of Watford and has an eclictic range of interests from Science and Technology to Politics including Woodwork and Genealogy. His political viewpoint has evolved from being a student demonstrator to more liberal views and has now seen the light in Libertarianism.
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Isn’t ‘Local Motion’ when you crap on your own doorstep?
( I’ll get my coat…)
That’s the turd time you’ve cracked that one.
Bog standard Raccoon humour…
I thought we’d hit rock bottom there….
Sorry – I’m now flushed with embarrassment.
Local motions are an everyday part of my feline existence – in fact, I’d find it particularly challenging to engage in more distant ones, although it has to be said that a previous day’s dodgy fish supper might possibly result in more er.. projectile displacements. I always feel so much better afterwards..
a ‘Local Motion’ advisor… or ‘a bloke paid to tell people how to do the bleedin’ obvious!
How very dare you! It might be a female woman of the opposite sex. We’ll split on you to Mad Hattie Harperson…..
I was about to reply in the same vein, and then I thought that, from what I know of Darlington, any ‘advisor’ sent out to tell the natives to leave their cars at home should probably be a very big bloke indeed, preferably skilled in the art of self-defence.
Mmmm, I was wondering if a smack in the teeth would be acceptable in the circumstances.
Presumably the Local Motion advisors are ‘best placed’ to feedback information to the council about ideal locations for new Public Conveniences?
If a Local Motion Advisor came knocking at my door he/she/it would be travelling down the garden path a lot faster than they did when they travelled up it.
Can we take it that the employees and members of the Borough Council will be making all of their own journeys by ‘sustainable transport’ or does it only apply to the proles?
Don’t be daft Macheath – its probably a ‘reserved occupation’ so he gets a special fuel allowance next time there’s a petrol crisis.
Why Darlington, why not Royal Tunbridge Wells or Chipping Sodbury? Could it be more migration of cash from the productive to the non productive? Surely our magnificent leaders can come up with better job creation schemes than this drivel.
My son Lives in Darlington. Maybe he can get a part time job as one of those “Advisers”.
I live “Dahn Sarf” – but they would probably pay me to commute if I established my ethnic-diversity (= Daddy was from Huddersfield)?
“According to Darlington Council, the ‘Local Motion’ scheme has caused a 9% reduction in car journeys. Of course, they can’t prove this. All of this could have happened naturally as frustrated drivers opt for quicker and easier ways of getting to work.”
Of course that would be entirely down to the ‘Local Motion’ scheme, and definitely not – in no way – due to the soaring costs of petrol / diesel.
National Express has changed all the bus routes in Coventry because they have been unaltered for fifty years after “consultation”. To illustrate how easy the new routes are to remember they paid for the world memory champion to memorise the routes in five minutes. Patronising bastards! Still, National Express are a private sector company so by definition they can’t do wrong.
Presumably the required qualification is that the candidate be fully familiar with the Bristol Stool Chart.
So glad I followed that link….
Presumably other cities have their own charts, with local variants described.
I imagine the local Bradford version would have Bhuna, Madras, Dopiaza, Vindaloo, Jalfrezi etc.
No need for separate categories though, they’re all the same at the output level – just label them all ‘Hot & Fluid’.
For God’s sake man!! Too much information!!!
Perhaps Darlington council might consider offering Local Authority Donkey Grants, and might also consider the current lamentable provision in the town for parking one’s rickshaw.
Now I don’t want to get in a scrap
With some northener in a flat cap,
But I have a notion
This ‘ere local motion’s
A case for a pony and trap.
@macheath: Very good!
I read it as Lo-cal motion – you know, a diet excrescence.
I’ve already got my coat…
This Blog (and the comments) should be “required reading” for all Parliamentary Candidates. If they don’t “Get it” then don’t vote for them.
Read it carefully – it’s not “a” Local Motion Adviser – it’s EIGHT of them.
Time for the lamp-posts and hempen rope?