| The common thread running through the Church St. debacle, Layton Rd. proposals in Brentford and this one, not to mention Wheelie bins is the council's (mis)handling of the issues in every case. Instead of talking to local people likely to be affected way before anything is on the cards, they only go through the motions, and then people are landed with a fait accompli and rightly feel very aggrieved. We are all then met with this wall of obstinacy and a complete refusal to engage and talk things through to see if there are any compromises or even better ideas to be discussed. We are not fools, we all know school places are needed, we all appreciate traffic is a problem, some of us even accept that not everyone wants or can accommodate a Wheelie, the opportunity to thrash these differences out is denied to us in every case. It's a 'we've decided and you lot can lump it' attitude that is so very hard to forgive. And don't even get me started on this 'single member decision', well on his head be it - these things will not go away, we will not be bullied. If the powers that be haven't grasped that yet, then they are thicker than we thought. |