Why it can't or can be done

When I became elected as a local councillor I naively thought that I could make a difference, get things done, make the town a better place. Slowly I began to realise that this was a very wet behind the ears notion. Lots of issues were raised by me and my fellow councillors over the last six years I've been doing this, most of the time, in fact probably all of the time all we ever did was to ask the town clerk to send a very strongly worded letter to who ever we thought was the person or department responsible at SLDC, Cumbria County council or even the Government. We sometimes would receive a reply telling us why whatever we had asked to be done or not done could not be done.

What we often wanted to happen was that the nincompoop that was responsible for some hair-brained scheme be sacked or at the least be asked to come and grovel before the baying councillors. We sometimes did get a visit from some minion who would explain away why this or that action had to be carried out, or not carried out. This always seemed to fall way short of what we wanted but as the council is run in a polite manner most of these representatives would get away with a their lame excuse because in the end it was not their fault, they were simply following orders or working through policy set down by the bureaucracy that employed them. It is like wading through treacle. So nothing gets done, or things get done that you don't want to get done, that's how local government works, or doesn't work. It's basically an exercise in frustration that often leads nowhere. And all the time somebody is getting paid to make nothing happen, or to make something happen that you don't want to happen.

And then we have the public consultations that take place, undoubtedly a great cost, with the idea that we will have some influence on policy, that will inform the decisions of the powers that be. Do you remember the community travel plan from back in 2008. It was an elaborate farce to help us reduce our carbon footprint.

Here is an extract from my blog back in 2008 announcing the result of this costly exercise.


You see the plan was to help us cut down on our towns carbon footprint. This meant that any ideas that benefited pedestrians or cyclists or public transport would be considered as a priority. So top of the list of things that the CCC will do to improve things in Ulverston is to erect a notice board in the town centre which will tell us what times the trains run, cost £2,500. All I can say is this better be a very snazzy notice board.>The other "major" improvements were a pavement in theatre st. and a smooth crossing of Market st for wheelchairs, oh and some secure bike racks.

Today I tried a search of the CCC website to find out what had become of the result of this survey, to find out where we were with the outcomes of this consultation. Typing Community Travel Plan into their search box returned no matches, NADA, 0 no reference to it anywhere.

We don't have our notice board, or our disabled crossing point on market street, not one thing from that consultation has taken place. No wonder we get frustrated.

If we were French maybe we would be marching, maybe we would be lying in the 590, maybe we would be burning effigies of the County Councils big chief, but being British we just shrug our shoulders and ask the town clerk to send a strongly worded letter, that should do the trick.