| Topic: | Latest developments on Isleworth Pit Park saga | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 15/06/15 16:50:00 |
| As this is a major ongoing local issue in its own right I thought I'd take the liberty of detaching it from the Brent Lea thread so as not to blur the two, linked though they are as they both throw a revealing light on our local authority's approach to resident engagement: Vanessa Smith wrote: "It seems in our fight to wrest our local park back from individual usage and ensure pubic access for local residents, that Isleworth councillors are taking lessons from their Leader. Apparently a meeting has been arranged for this Thursday at Isleworth Library to set up a 'working party' to look into the issues surrounding the use of the park, it has become clear that only selected people have been notified of this meeting, it looks like it's people who back on to the park only, which is not a lot of homes when you consider the local area. In the best traditions of repressive states across the world Labour councillors are manipulating the process instead of opening this up to the wider public locally. I have asked for an explanation of just who decided to do this and why the people who have been notified don't include the people who took the trouble to respond to the so-called 'consultation' (which was done after the park was given away). After all if people took the trouble to respond then doesn't that tell you that they have an interest in what happens?" As anybody who has been a councillor knows, there are sometimes extraordinary demands on an elected member's time. This is even more so in the case of a councillor who serves on the Cabinet, as two of Isleworth's three elected members do. Under the circumstances it seems bizarre to say the least that Isleworth's councillors would want to set up a working party involving some of the residents affected by a Council decision but not others, with a view to then repeating the exercise before a wider group at some unstipulated later stage. Much easier, one would have thought, to include everybody concerned from the off. It is difficult therefore to conclude that this is anything other than a particularly crude attempt at community divide and rule, which seems an extraordinarily insensitive and frankly arrogant approach to take in the wake of the original blunders to which the councillors freely admit (although some believe, not without good reason, that there was more to things than mere incompetence). Surely some contrition, rather than further manipulation of events, is what is called for here? Some words of explanation either from them or from their Leader, whose backing they continue to enjoy, would be helpful to us all. |