"But were I in his position I would have considered an embarrassed silence to have been a more appropriate response than a victorious declaration of the fact that he has managed to persuade his own officers to reverse a decision for which he himself had ultimate responsibility."
Well apart from the fact that Ed was updating me and us on the situation, this is a local politician we're dealing with. And I don't agree that he was 'triumphalist', and I am highly critical of the farce that has been caused with local traffic as you will know. My beef is that having been notified that there is a problem as with that bloody roundabout and my bugbear, that median strip, there doesn't seem to be any dialogue, rather a sort of messenger situation rather than a questioning of officers about why they're doing what they're doing and what steps they have taken to listen to local concerns. It's the incredibly arrogant 'we know best 'attitude of these traffic engineers, and then when you are critical they cry like babies and get all hurt and precious and moan to councillors who then get sniffy with their constituents, which I found very hard to stomach and just makes you even more furious. Like you - been there - got the T-shirt, but I would not back off, I'd be demanding answers. These people work off maps - they don't seem to deal with the day to day driving and road conditions which are a whole different ball-game, they could try listening to local people first - hey! Who knows they might even save some time and money! Why not use this Forum to communicate? Anything rather than the farcical shambles we are still going through. |