SO WHAT'S GETTING UP THIS BLOGGER'S NOSTRILS TODAY?
GO on John, treat yourself. Have a rant. Get it off your chest. Tell them how it is.
Thankyou, I will. And in case you’re wondering what’s getting up this particular blogger’s nostrils today, it’s the usurping of the role of local councillors, and the fact we probably have the system we deserve.
The nonsense that keeps landing on my desk would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. OK so Robin Page got me going at the weekend, with his resignation letter from South Cambs printed across 2 pages in the Mail on Sunday. After 36 years on the council, Robin has decided he’s had enough, had enough of the standards board preventing debate, enough of opposition councillors seizing on the minutiae of political correctness in denouncing his right to speak openly, and of the debates that are now stifled through the rigours and controls that invade every aspect of local government.
In Fenland there are many who think we are getting our fill, too, of the worst excesses of political correctness.
Take, for example, the newsletter that arrived this morning from the Campaign for Rural England. Inside is the complaint, and the response, from the CPR when they submitted an on line response about the local development framework for the Fens. Nothing wrong with that but the official who submitted the response was asked to fill in details of ethnicity, sex, age, and all the other ‘discriminatory’ responses so beloved these days of officialdom. Why on earth Fenland needed it, she asked, when it was about planning and nothing else. Easy, came the response, we need to monitor responses! It beggars belief.
Or take the case of Councillor Jonathan Farmer, wanting to know why people who complain to the council should not have their letters forwarded to their ward councillors.
No way, says the legal beavers at Fenland Hall. We have the Data Protection Act. So we can pass on the general content of the letter but no names or addresses. To get those you need to register with the Information Commissioner, and then we might consider it. So it means all councillors must register themselves as an entity of some description with the Information Commissioner and they might, just might, get the information that actually may help their constituent put right a wrong.
Plenty else, too, happening in Fenland to get me going, how about the conclusion of a six month review of tourism, and goodness know how many meetings later, to return us to the status quo (and a little extra) that many feel should never have been tinkered with in the first place. They are even suggesting that if the tourist centre in Wisbech remains in the one-stop shop then it should be re-configured to enable traffic to be separated better between those asking about b and bs, with those asking about benefits. I seem to recall attending a meeting two years ago at the one-stop shop when such an obvious point was made after the first wave of protests began about the future delivery of tourism services.
Plenty of councillors were there, if I recall, including Peter Skoulding and Pop Jolley, and they even asked my advice (promptly ignored of course) but so many years down the line we are back where we started.
And just for good measure, let me add one more rant about councillors afore I go- and that is the age at which they ought to retire.
Now I’ve been sounding out many of the councillors on Fenland to see if they are likely to accede to the wishes of new Tory leader David Cameron and opt for a voluntary retirement age (say about 70) to pave the way for younger blood.
Regrettably I see little encouragement in the Fens for that wish, and so the list of septuagenarian and even octogenarian councillors sitting on Fenland Council is likely to worsen.
Age should never be a barrier to carrying out the duties of a councillor, but in this increasingly complex age, and with the full force of a highly tuned executive engulfing the average member in paperwork at a rate that would make most head for the exit, this must surely be considered.
A strong executive is needed for any local authority, but equally so is a strong elected chamber able to curb their worst excesses.
My view is that in Fenland many younger wannabe councillors have disappeared from view, and that we are entering some sort of golden age of apathy and discontent - two aspects to be avoided at all costs in a healthy democracy.
The issue is not about party politics, but about the ability of a community to exercise proper and democratic control.
And that needs some younger blood.
Must go, off to try and find out why a woman who works for Fenland Council cannot get a post removed from outside her front gate that is preventing vehicle access to her property. It’s a follow up to a story we did earlier this year and we thought it had been resolved. It hasn’t, and I commend this week’s paper to you to find out what has happened.