Petersfield group under threat as nothing happens

A Petersfield residents’ group is under threat of extinction after effectively killing off any activity whatsoever in the town.

The Petersfield Residents Against ThingS (PRATS) action group has been so successful in ridding the locale of everything that it is losing members rapidly while newspapers and websites seemingly have nothing to report.

Cam Payne, the chairman of the group, explained: “We’ve been in existence now for a number of years and have been ‘outraged’ by everything from tattoo parlours to litter louts. As a group we’ve been responsible for the non-existence of gypsy encampments within the town boundaries; the rise of expensive coffee shops; the lack of entertainment venues; and a high-profile protest against stuff we don’t like or aren’t really sure about.

“But this success has come at a cost. We are haemorrhaging members at an alarming rate; with little left to protest about, they are going off to do other things such as opening coffee shops and jewellers. There is also a very public knock-on effect of our successful protesting – the letters pages of the local newspapers are no longer chock-full of readers’ ill-informed complaint.

“Instead they’re full of people thanking other people for helping them raise funds for some-such thing or for assisting an elderly relative who stumbled while getting out of an illegally parked 4X4. In the Petersfield Proust, they’ve even given over half the letters page to a guy who spends every week moaning about his miserable life.

“At any other time he would have been an ideal member for PRATS, but sadly we’re struggling to recruit as there seems so little to complain about locally. We may even have to turn our attention to national or even international matters. Following today’s news that the Occupy London protest at St Paul’s has been removed perhaps we could Occupy Waitrose … although obviously, we wouldn’t be objecting against capitalism in any form.”

His view on the dearth of local stories was echoed by a spokesman for Petersfield Newswire, Petersfield’s leading news website with the word ‘Newswire’ in its title.

The spokesman said: “I echo his views on the dearth of local stories. Nothing’s happening. We’re even looking forward to the summer, so we at least have the algae and water shortages to write about. It’s a sad time."

Folding paper could be much worse than it sounds

Some fish and chips, sold by a fish and chip shop yesterday 

D-Day is looming for our two local papers: the Petersfield Proust and Petersfield Harold.

The newspaper industry is in rapid decline and local media expert Meg Azine believes one of the papers may be forced to fold before Christmas owing to a dearth of suitable stories.

She explained: “Recently the papers have been able to exist on a diet of exam result pictures, prom pictures and pages of pictures taken at events like the summer festivities. It’s got like a middle-class Hello! 

“But with summer almost behind us these options are no longer open to the newspapers. They have to start finding proper stories and there just aren’t enough to go around.

“The economy has hit them hard: with university fees going up next year, fewer private-school kids are able to take a year off to try to go round the world and ask for financial support in the paper while being photographed on their bike, in their canoe or simply looking posh.

“Every available piece of land appears to have been built on so there are no residents’ campaigns to feature; there are fewer and fewer ‘vicious attacks’ or murders for neighbours to ‘come to terms with’; banks can no longer afford to print giant cheques to hand over to allotment holders; and if we get a traffic warden even the letters page might have to go.

“Already we have seen stories such as ‘fish and chip shop sells fish and chips’ and ‘ex-railway worker has shiny top hat’. And a local non-entity has even been given his own column to pad out the Proust. The signs are not good.”

However, local entrepreneur Osama Ben Hurry, a specialist in “stepping in at the last minute to save the day” plans to step in at the last minute to save the day. He claims to have an idea which would enable both papers to survive at least until the new year.

“It’s called the Christmas Festivities,” he said. “I thought we could shut the High St for three days, have some live music, some Christmas-themed stalls and a special big arrow pointing from the War Memorial to Café Fusso, so nobody misses out on business.

“It will provide lots of stories in the run-up to Christmas if we come up with some awards and some disgruntled shopkeepers – and there’s never any shortage of those in Petersfield. And afterwards there will be enough pictures of small children wrapped up warm and old men in shiny suits to last well into January.

“Then if we launch an Easter Festivities we should have enough material to last until the next murder happens. It would be a tragedy if this small town lost its overpriced and news-light local papers.”

A spokesman for the Petersfield Harold denied the newspaper was facing an uncertain future.

“There is no truth in the rumour of our potential demise,” he insisted. “Only this week in our editorial meeting we discussed the possibility of a ‘biggest sunflower’ competition and the use of more ‘news’ from Haslemere. It’s business as usual here.”