OK, forget the head-swapping finesse, but please can someone help me with the placards? Need it for my ranty cycling blog.
For context these are the prime agitators of a livid rump (and if 'livid rump' puts you in mind of a baboon's arse so much the better) of middle-aged paunchy car-dependents who've successfully reversed the replacement of a fractious, anarchic, pedestrian and cyclist hostile town-centre mini-roundabout, in a car-buggered market town of pedestrian and cyclist hostile streets, with traffic lights. Ugly, dishonest, minority campaign given an unstoppable tail-wind by the wretched Morpeth Herald.
Interestingly Phil Jones - shared-space luminary who once sat next to Chris Boardman on a breakfast TV sofa and sounded like he very much got the active travel thing - was the consultant brought in to review the decision. Have it on reasonable authority that his brief was, a priori, to reach a conclusion that would see the removal of these traffic lights. Phil's apparently been on £750 per day plus expenses for a bloody age to bring in a pre-determined decision that saves the Council's face some, because 'independent'.