Jobsworths and opportunists cast a shadow over our lives (From Wharfedale Observer)

Jobsworths and opportunists cast a shadow over our lives

3:09pm Wednesday 4th April 2007

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WITHOUT making judgments on a particular case, it is often generally assumed that modern life is blighted by the health and safety culture.

Take the River Wharfe for example. It has been around since at least the last Ice Age, yet only this year has Leeds City Council deemed it necessary to erect a safety fence on the bank to stop people falling in and drowning.

Despite the repeated warnings to stay away from cold, open water, tragically a few unfortunate people each year have been drowning in rivers, lakes and ponds since the dawn of humanity and will no doubt continue to do so despite the proliferation of fences. People have also been managing to trip and hurt themselves on streets and pavements since the first urban councils began laying them.

Some pieces of our urban landscape are more dangerous than others and a certain number of accidents at a particular spot should prompt the city fathers to consider preventative measures, but paying out large sums of money to victims is usually the case.

The most alarming risk to modern health is the proliferation of health and safety officials and lawyers. It is getting almost impossible to walk down city streets nowadays without being accosted by some law firm's gopher asking if you have cut your finger in the last two years and have you considered suing everybody connected with the incident.

And there are a whole army of clip-board carrying, self-important martinets pointing out the dangerous risks involved in every activity from cutting your toenails with an unguarded blade to ripping your tongue open on a sharp postage stamp.

The combination of opportunist lawyers and jobsworth officialdom is combining to make the existence of every city council chief a nightmare.

It has resulted in Leeds City Council hiding behind a massive shield of ridiculous bans, limitations and laborious operating procedures to protect itself.

The shadow it casts diminishes all our lives.

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