The Youth Hostels Association may find it has got its sums wrong when it comes to sell its Aysgarth hostel.
It came as no surprise that the association announced the hostel's closure this week. Although the initial closure decision was deferred for more than a year, there was always a feeling that the London-based bean counters had made up their minds on the basis that a substantial building in one of the Yorkshire Dales' hottest tourist spots would fetch a pretty price on the open market.
They may not, however, have taken into account the strictness of national park planning policy which will require the association to market it as commercial premises rather than for housing. It's a lesson Barclays Bank learned when it decided to close its branch at Reeth and found there were not many takers for large commercial premises of that type on Dales villages.
It ended up selling what is now known as Hudson House to the community partnership for peanuts. At the time this was dressed up as a gift to the community it had abandoned. Cynics suggest it was all they could get for it.
The Youth Hostels Association may find itself in a similar position.
Gobbledegook
SPECTATOR'S by no means a technophobe, but was utterly bemused by a statement issued by Capita - the people who administers teachers' pensions at Mowden Hall, Darlington - about changes there.
It read: "Migration of remaining legacy systems to Capita's wholly owned technology suite, Hartlink, will provide a flexible and extendable platform to underpin change and facilitate service transformation. This robust and proven technology will enable Capita to meet individual stakeholder needs and deliver flexible service access. Further automation of work distribution and processes alongside the embedding of verification routines and fully auditable case tracking will drive through additional service efficiencies. The new service platform is capable of supporting new technologies such as WAP, SMS text messaging, 3G communications and, into the future, interactive digital television and their associated work methodologies offering huge benefits for flexibility for the future."
Spectator is informed it means Capita has some new computer software and thinks it will work. Got that?
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