A Barnsley resident who was recently jailed for a chainsaw attack on his neighbour may get an early release thanks to the intervention of Barnsley Council.
Originally sentenced to 24 months and expected to serve at least 8 days of that, his sentence is now due to be reduced to 1 hour 45 minutes after the cash-strapped council requested his services to cut down trees from greenbelt land in preparation for a new pub development.
Explaining the reasoning behind the controversial decision, Licencing Officer David Brown-Envelope told us "We're between a rock and a hard place. 90% of the council's revenue comes from back-handers to issue alcohol licences, and we're running out of room to open new pubs".
The council recently demolished the town centre library, after realising that local residents gained their knowledge from Facebook and their local pub rather than books, but this has done little to abate the real-estate shortage.
The move to develop greenbelt land has been strongly opposed by locals, who object to having to walk further or take a horse and cart to get to the proposed new bar complex. One angry resident, 55 year-old great-grandmother Sally Mutton, had this to say; "It's abart time thi shut darn summa them cluaths shops and made them in t' pubs. Folk aren't art buyin' cluaths all the time- ave bin wearin' the same mini skirt an' boob tube since a woh 15. Thez a Primark ent market, that's enough. An' all these shops sellin' body wash- thez jus' no neead".
A satirical look at all the news and happenings in the idyllic hamlet of Barnsley
