| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Horse Play in Isleworth? | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 08/02/15 15:09:00 |
| It tells us rather a lot about the way in which Hounslow Council operates, that officers can presume to lecture residents about the best way to manage a piece of ground in Isleworth when they think it (the ground, or maybe Isleworth itself) is in Feltham. It is for this reason that we elect local councillors - people who live in the area or at least who have a close affinity with it and are thereby possessed of a better understanding of the needs and wishes of the local people (I have my own issues about such people serving a political party which often brings them into conflict with the very people they were elected to represent, but that is a discussion for another day). Whilst the general expertise of officers in their respective fields must be respected, elected members need to provide the local guidance and, if needs be, the authority to makes things happen in a way that best serves the interests of the people whom they were elected to represent (and councillors need reminding that they are in fact elected to represent their constituents rather than the organisation they happen to be a part of, however important and special their association with such may make them feel - or in certain cases their own personal mates or associates). All of this is really to state the obvious, but it is because this has patently not happened in this instance that things have gone awry. And it is because elected members feel secure in the fact that they are sitting on large majorities and in any event do not have to go to the polls again for nearly three and a half years that they can afford to sit back, pat each other's backs and cover their rears, and scoff at the predicament in which residents find themselves. The only person within this group who really should be concerned is the parliamentary candidate, but evidently she isn't. |