It's my experience driving round estates (yes, even working-class ones) that there are now so many traffic calming measures that it's impossible to drive at more than about 10 miles per hour, at least if you don't want to lose your exhaust. I'd be interested to see the statistics that say that "working class" children are mostly the victims of "middle class" drivers. How is this being quantified? Are the victims and the drivers subjected to statistical analysis, such as Mosaic or Acorn? Intriguing if they are...

Marje pointed out, quite rightly, that if anything it's the posh kids whose playtime is absolutely regulated and regimented these days. And yes, the biggest bogeyman is the abducting paedophile, never mind that most paedophilia occurs within the home by perpitrators well known to their victims, and probably family members. If you're not seeing kids on the street, it's probably because they are inside watching telly or playing on their XBox. I believe that the games console is a great class leveller these days.

I do think that heritage is a moveable feast, and though there is much institutionalised heritage, there is also lots that's totally democratised through its very nature. I am as interested in intangible heritage and culture as I am in buildings and bridges. I do not think that creating a "heritage" ringfence around something in order to preserve it necessarily denotes that it has been taken out of the hands of the people - in my old village, the parish council got the red telephone box on the green listed so that it couldn't be removed. You could still go in and make calls from it. We also did a village history for the millennium, compliled by the residents, and yours for a fiver. I did the oral histories chapter - something else that's a totally democratised aspect of heritage. Ironically, in the same village one of the most historically important houses had a chimney fire and, being thatched, it burnt to the ground. Everyone in the village was rather nonplussed by the lady who visited from the listings office to examine the remains, and told the owners that they had to re-build the cottage EXACTLY as it had been. The listings people apparently acknowledged that it would no longer be the old cottage, but this was their ruling. When does institutionalised heritage become a parody of itself?

There's heritage all around us. I can go to my friend's farm house and have a cuppa while sitting under beams that were carved 600 yeard ago. I can have a natter with her husband, a sheep farmer, who is descended from the Bassanos, court musicians to Henry VIII who were eventually immortalised in The Merchant of Venice. You can go to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset and Devon, and even though it's a designated World Heritage Site you can still paddle in the sea. Even in America, with its comparitively short history, I can go to the Sea Islands of South Carolina and stay in a Gullah community and hear people speak a language that is directly decended from West African slavery, I can listen to their songs and eat their food; or I could go to the Albert Hall in Waretown, New Jersey and listen to people playing old time Piney music.

Some heritage gets isolated; some doesn't. Some stays in the hands of its community; some doesn't. But I would dispute that heritage only takes on that title and is given cultural currency when it is taken out of the hands of the people. I would also say that, just because people kick up a fuss and say that something oughtn't to be removed because it is part of their heritage, means they automatically should have the right to that determination. As I said in the original thread, places, especially cities, change. inevitably, someone's history and someone's heritage is lost. As long as change is effected sensitively the compromises can make people's day-to-day lives better. Replacing the bridge in Leicester with a sports centre and swimming baths, so long as they are open to the public, may well turn out to be an example of this, and be of benefit to more people than the bridge ever could. And then, in 60 or 70 years' time, the great-grandkids of the current protesters can protest about the city wanting to tear down the old DMU baths that they remember swimming in when they were kids. :)