NANNY STATE

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Calls to deploy “chain gangs” of convicts to clear litter from Britain’s major roadsides have been blocked because of health and safety concerns. Transport minister Chris Mole said convicted criminals on community service orders had neither the right training nor enough experience to safely pick up discarded Mars bar wrappers and place them in plastic bags. Instead, he said the Government would continue to deploy contractors at an annual cost of £500million to tackle a litter problem blighting Britain’s major roads.

Tory Mike Penning said there was “anger and real frustration that our great country and our excellent road network are being blighted”. He said 13 tonnes of litter a week was being hurled out of vehicle windows or being dumped from the backs of bin lorries and uncovered skips. Yet the Highways Agency and local councils are clearing less than one tonne of that a week, meaning more than 600 tonnes of litter is piles up on major roadsides every year.

Mr Penning was “amazed” to spot recently a discarded Marathon bar wrapper: Marathon bars were rebranded Snickers 20 years ago. The Hemel Hempstead MP said, “If someone leaves London and travels up the M1 from Brent Cross, they are driving through a rubbish tip, there is no other way to describe it. People who pay their taxes, including huge amounts of road tax and other duty, are driving along the highways to look at what? Refuse. Everywhere you go, there is rubbish and litter.”

He said it “should not be the job of Government” to pay people to clean up the mess, especially when there was an obvious alternative. He said, “The people who should also contribute to this work are the people who need to pay back the community when they have done something wrong but who have not been sent to prison.” Convicts serving community service orders would be “absolutely perfect”, he said. He added, “As difficult and back-breaking as the job may be, the necessary training to pick up litter on a motorway that has been coned off is not huge.”

However, although so-called chain gangs can pick litter from city centres, motorways and roads are currently considered too dangerous. Transport minister Mr Mole said he would talk to Ministry of Justice officials, but warned, “There could be safety issues involved in using untrained, inexperienced staff in an environment that can be dangerous.” A Highways Agency spokesman said its contractors were allowed to work without coning of motorways, but was unable to detail what training they received. He said, “We would much prefer that people didn’t throw away litter in the first place.” (Source: Sunday Express, Apr/10)

A charity race which has traditionally taken place every year has been scrapped amid health and safety fears. Organisers have had to cancel the annual bath tub race in Shoreham, East Sussex, which raised £250,000 for charity in 2006. The event, which takes place every August, involves a series of cast iron tubs being decorated, made seaworthy and then rowed six miles along the River Adur. For the past 35 years the race has attracted crowds from far and wide, but the charity committee that organises the event has cancelled it due to concerns over health and safety. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Mar/07)

School bosses have banned pupils playing football in the playground in case they get hurt by flying balls. Head Cathy Long, at Burnham Grammar in Bucks, has declared break-time matches "dangerous". Kids now stand around with nothing to do despite health experts advising children to be more active to tackle obesity. Mrs Long defended her decision, by saying, "It has become the latest thing to kick a ball at each other. A member of staff accidentally had a football kicked in her face and we have had a few kids having to see matron." Two months previously, a girl of three was stopped using a swimming float in Exeter in case she hurt herself with the polystyrene block. (Source: Daily Mirror, Jan/07)

Throwing sweets into the audience has been a tradition of the festive pantomime for many decades but bureaucrats are set to stamp out the tradition because they claim boiled sweets could injure a member of the audience. The ruling was made by a committee for the Preston Drama Club in Lancashire which fears an injury could spark a compensation claim. Instead organisers of one pantomime have been told they must go down into the crowd and hand out the sweets. Committee members believe it would be far too costly to insure against a member of the audience losing an eye or sustaining another injury. So rather than fork out for the costly insurance they have banned the tradition of throwing sweets to the children instead. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Dec/06)

Bristol City Council has removed up to 100 yew trees planted near a playground following complaints from parents that children could be poisoned if they ate the leaves or berries. The trees were planted last year at a cost of about £1,000 at the area on the Blaise Castle estate in Bristol, which is managed by the city council. The council said that following a "risk assessment" it was decided that the "safest option" was to remove them. In hindsight it added that it should have been aware that parents would be concerned. Trevor Beer, a naturalist, said it would take "handfuls" of the plant to present a danger. He said, "That is no excuse to uproot them. If that happened to all Britain's poisonous plants, there would be no countryside left." (Source: Daily Telegraph, Mar/06)

Pupils have been stopped from putting their hands up to answer questions because their school believes it leads to feelings of victimisation. "No hands up" notices have been posted in every room at the Jo Richardson comprehensive in Dagenham, east London, as a reminder that the teachers will decide who should answer. The head, Andrew Buck, says it is always the same children who wave their arms in the air, while the rest of the class sits back. When teachers try to involve less adventurous pupils by choosing them instead, that leads to feelings of victimisation.

Mr Buck believes that it can also cause panic in children who are picked but do not know the answer while others around them are straining to give it. To spare the embarrassment of those who do not know the answer, the school uses a "phone a friend" system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead. Mr Buck says the ban on putting hands up has improved attention levels because pupils never know when they will be called on. But of all the changes to teaching methods decided when the school opened four years ago, that policy had proved the most difficult to implement. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Jan/06)

Torches were banned from a festive torchlight procession because of health and safety fears. Marchers couldn't even carry candles ... in case people with long hair caught fire. Instead, councillors in the Cornish harbour town of Looe spent £350 on 500 plastic glowsticks for the event. Mayor Ron Overd said, "These days, people are suing at the drop of a hat. What we are talking about is naked flames, hot wax, long hair, cars with wax sprayed on them. We decided it would be prudent to use some other form of lighting."

More and more primary schools are being forced to give up school pets to avoid breaching the Department for Education's guidelines on health and safety. Rules say pupils must cover cuts before handling animals, wash their hands afterwards and not put into their mouths pens, fingers or crayons which might have come into contact with the pets or their cages. But teachers say that these rules are impossible to uphold in a class of 30 children.

A school has banned children from taking pencil cases into class in case they are used to hide sharp weapons. St Anne's Primary School in Denton, Greater Manchester, acted after a boy was cut with a letter opener by a pupil who had hidden it in a pencil case. Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said, "Most parents will think it is ridiculous to ban pencil cases just because one child carries a letter opener in his. It seems a bit extreme. Serious action should be taken against the particular individual, but to ban pencil cases universally is silly."

Carlyle Infant School, in Littleover, banned peanut butter sandwiches and peanuts from lunchboxes over fears of pupils having allergic reactions. Head teacher Ros Sutton said the school had a number of children with allergies, including four with the potentially fatal peanut allergy. Mrs Sutton said, "After lengthy discussions, we decided to write to parents asking them not to send anything to do with peanuts into school. Even touching something containing peanuts can be a problem and young children are very prone to swapping food with each other."

The school has also discontinued the practice of allowing children to bring in sweets to celebrate a birthday. Mrs Sutton said, "This is again linked to the allergy issue because we don't always know what's in the sweets. Some items also have ingredients which can cause religious offence, such as gelatine from beef or pork-related products, for Hindus and Muslims." Ah, so that's the real reason. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)