Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry Day 12
May 19 2014
An extra afternoon sitting of the Enquiry was arranged for
today for two reasons. Firstly the
timetable has been slipping behind and I believe the Inspector wanted to regain
some time where possible, and at the same time, Mr Bill McKinnon of The Friends
of Woodhouse Moor and the North Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association, who was
timetabled to cross examine Mr Jason Smith, Highways Engineer on technical
design features and engineering standards, was only available in a narrow
window, and so these two factors converged.
The links to the audios of this afternoon’s two
session are below, and as usual my commentary and thoughts on today’s
proceedings follow.
In the first part of the extra afternoon sitting which
took place on day 12 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, May 19 2014, Bill
McKinnon of The Friends of Woodhouse Moor and North Hyde Park Neighbourhood
Association cross examines Jason Smith, Highways Engineer on many details of
the Highways work associate with the NGT trolleybus scheme.
In the late afternoon session of day 12 of the Leeds
Trolleybus Enquiry, Bill McKinnon, of The Friends of Woodhouse Moor and North
Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association continues his cross examination of Jason
Smith, Highways Engineer, concentrating on issues including the regulations concerning
trolleybuses and areas which may be 'pedestrian dominated' rather than actually
pedestrianised.
The trolleybus enquiry continues to wade through mountains
of data. At present the stream is on
the technical nature of the road changes that would be made if the NGT scheme
were to be implemented and why they have been designed in the particular way
that they have. While on the one hand I
would definitely urge readers to dip into the archive of the Leeds Trolleybus
Enquiry audios we have accumulated, at the same time I feel there is often a
danger of getting lost in amidst all that detail.
The Inspector has found many occasions to chide objectors
in their questioning style, and for going on at too much length but while this
may be deserved one must remember that most of the objectors are laypeople who
are coming at both the technicalities of the engineering and participation at a
Public Enquiry as a new experience.
On the other hand I am beginning to feel that our current
witness, Jason Smith, is going on at too much length and often failing to get
to the point after very long peregrinations.
Indeed it was the case that on several occasions the Inspector appeared
to slightly lose patience with him and ask him come to the point. A good example of this was when the
condition of Woodhouse Lane in front of the Parkinson Building was debated and
Bill McKinnon was able to winkle out the fact that the area would only be
described as ‘pedestrian dominated’ which was to be distinguished from actually
being ‘pedestrianised’ because the Inspector enquired of Mr Smith, in effect: ‘Well
is it pedestrianised or isn’t it?’ It
seemed to me that there were elements
of sophistry and evasion being employed in the way these conditions were
being described.
The first and most obvious effect of this is that the
cross examinations are going on much longer than expected. Mr McKinnon originally gave his estimate for
how long he would need as two hours or so, but after a full afternoon he is
perhaps half way through what he has prepared.
He cannot be held entirely to blame for the drawn out nature of the
proceedings, and the extreme length of some of Mr Smith’s replies must surely
need to be curbed. The absurd fourteen
minutes and thirty five seconds which he took to answer a simple question from
Mrs Fahey the other day comes to mind as an example of such a thing.
Also Mr Smith seems to have almost over rehearsed his
replies, running on with his explanations, not allowing pause for the
questioner to make a response. The
Inspector has rightly come down on questioners who have interrupted the
witnesses and has imposed a good discipline on this, but I think it is one that
Mr Smith in particular has exploited and taken advantage of unfairly. It is a psychological war of attrition, and
a cunning way to make the questioner look bad when it is the witness who is
actually wasting time. I wouldn’t be
surprised to hear murmurings of ‘Get on with it’ from the audience, at least in
private, before long if this kind of thing is repeated too often.
While I am mentioning psychological war, I would like to
take the opportunity to mention another more subtle technique that some of the
NGT witnesses appear to be schooled in. You may notice sometimes if you listen
critically, that virtually all statements made by NGT are couched in the future
tense. ‘This will happen.’ ‘There will be such and such tree loss.’
‘The NGT land will run on Woodhouse Moor.’
All these type of assertions are presented as statements
of fact as if they are certain to happen.
Presenting something as certain to happen when it is not, and repeating
it, is a kind of attempted perceptual control that is an application of
Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a technique of
restructuring thought according to the way reality is presented in linguistic
terms and has been understood and used by the purveyors of propaganda for many
years.
This is what is being done when the NGT people speak about
this in definite terms. They are
attempting to infiltrate into your unconscious the assumption of inevitability.
Often the ‘worm’ assumption is hidden behind more attention grabbing stuff,
such as the actual data about the roads and documents etc., that we are
supposed to be paying attention to anyway.
So the definite future is ignored at a conscious level, but recognised
at the unconscious level. It happens
again and again, and yet is not challenged by the conscious mind, so it embeds
as an accepted assumption.
People say things like ‘the Council are going to do it
anyway, you won’t be able to stop it’.
And while it is certainly the case that the Council want to make
the trolleybus happen, I believe there are enough committed people who are
determined that it will not happen, and that they have such a wide
variety of justifications, that there may be a fascinating battle of wills
going on, but the implementation of the trolleybus is by no means certain at
all.
Couching all their terms in the definite future is not
only a sly way to twist people’s perceptions, but also monstrous hubris that
stands on its own regardless.
They have massively over egged the pudding and are presenting
a damaging proposal as if it were the future saviour of Leeds. This is why they seek to get us lost in
their endless detail and forget that there is a city and communities at stake
here. If people and trees and the
history Leeds didn’t matter, then this would probably be a great cattle
truck. But the communities and heritage
and environment do matter and that is what the infra-structure should be
for, to support all that functionally, not dominate and take over so that it
destroys them.
For the people in Metro their plans are more important
than the people who would be trampled in their way.
If the trolleybus went ahead, the Council would doubtless
declare that the operation was a success, but when you looked closer you would
find that the patient had died on the operating table.
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