| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Don't Close Church Street Petition | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 22/10/15 21:16:00 |
| Whatever the merits or demerits of the road closure plan, only Hounslow could make a decision to close a road and then hold a consultation about it. Hounslow has never been good at consultation and the reason for this has been a lack of understanding, even at a most fundamental level, as to WHY it should consult. There are signs on occasion of a rudimentary recognition that there is a requirement to consult but when it happens, which isn't very often, one senses that it is being done under extreme protest and that the motions are simply being gone through. The impression I sometimes form is that our local lords and masters, councillors and officers, see the act of consulting residents as demeaning and a diminution of their power over us. As Lead Member for Citizen Engagement Councillor Dennison has a sound grasp of what community engagement is, but one gets the feeling that he has basically given up on a role in which he is something akin to a North Korean Minister for Free Speech, and is now just seeing his assignment out in anticipation of the Council Leader finding him a more useful job counting cars in the Civic Centre multi-storey. It is for this reason that I am extremely suspicious of this Council's decision to employ not one but TWO full-time community engagement officers, at a time when ever more brutal cuts are having to be made. Whilst I would support such appointments in principle, the fact that they are being made by this Council under this leadership is counter-intuitive to say the very least. |