Pussyfooting

Is the Blacka management problem down to the fact that some people in management jobs just don’t think the same way?

It was instructive to watch the BBC Tales from the National Parks documentary about the plucky villagers of Great Longstone and their struggle with the PDNPA. The park officers simply did not want to deal with the problem of off roaders on their local quiet lane.

At the start the programme looked as if it was to be about the clash between the off-roaders and the locals. But, it turned out, as the presenter said, to be something else. The off-roaders themselves, frankly, were just doing what they wanted because nobody was stopping them – like a child with his hand in the sweetie jar (albeit one who had been told by a calculating lawyer that mum and dad were in the wrong.)

The programme was really about the mental chaos within the PDNPA professionals who had got themselves utterly tangled up within a flawed cultural mindset and unable to see the thing in perspective. The main responsibility had to be with Chief Executive (yes another one,) Jim Dixon, for his leadership built on an unsound philosophy which led to his Rangers getting themselves into unnecessary difficulties. Consequently a message had been communicated to the off-roaders that they were in the right. I summarise Dixon’s attitude as it came across as this:

1 The National Park is for all.
2 Therefore everyone should be allowed to do his own thing more or less everywhere in the National Park.

Dixon’s attitude seemed to be that 2 followed from 1. He was shown at the end bemoaning the fact that the National Park was about access and here they were setting about restricting access. With thinking like that in a major decision maker what chance do we have of getting a rational approach, perhaps to anything? There can never be any blanket allowance that everybody can go down every peaceful lane doing absolutely what they want and the law as it stands should not be an excuse for failing to think that through. A law that’s stood for years can never be foolproof at least in times of considerable change. And a body like a National park is in a position to get laws and regulations changed. It was so painful seeing Dixon and his two managers puzzling this out that I almostfelt sorry for them - but not quite. The problem for them seems to be that they have adopted certain guiding principles which amount to a few words each, almost a slogan, and ‘the park is for all’ is one of them. Many people these days do think in slogans; it’s a symptom of growing up in a world of advertising. But slogans are no substitute for reflection based on observation, evidence and values.

As far as inclusiveness and everyone doing their own thing is concerned I personally enjoy making bonfires. I could get so far as saying I’m passionate about them, getting enormous satisfaction over building one,watching the flames and hearing the primitive crackling sounds as it flares up. I might call myself a bonfire lover and get a group of similar bonfire lovers together who obsessively each lit a fine smoky fire in their back gardens a couple of times a week. So why don’t I do that? I’ve got enough wood in the back garden to do so. The answer’s simple. It would cause annoyance to my neighbours and if everyone did it life where I live would become intolerable. So I’ve exercised some self discipline and made it my business to develop many other interests, so many that there are not enough hours in the day. Hence I hardly miss my passion for bonfires and restrict my fire making just to the weekend nearest November 5th.
Why does this approach not get followed by other anti-social obsessives? If that’s an argument Jim Dixon doesn’t see, well we are in trouble.

All in all I’m now beginning to wonder if some of the problems we’ve had on Blacka are rooted in the same slogan-style ideology or dogma that may be endemic in publicly employed conservation workers and land managers in the PDNPA.