As we warned six months ago, “Nothing says Mayor Marvin “The Vicar” Rees is a hopelessly over-promoted public sector middle manager without a clue quite like his plan to get long-suffering councillors to review resident parking zones in their wards, apparently without any SUPPORT or RESOURCES.”
So it’s no surprise to find councillors are now complaining about, er, the USELESS and INEFFECTIVE consultation process around resident parking zones in their wards. Lib Dem Councillor for Cotham, Anthony Negus, recently confronted the vicar over his shambles.
“The recent consultations in my ward were only notified by notices on lampposts and so the responses were few,” he explained, “the resulting changes and their implications on adjacent areas will NOT BE NOTIFIED and officers required that NO COMMENTS be sent to them.”
Negus then demanded, “Does the Mayor welcome the outcome of his policy being PERSONAL DECISIONS made by councillors – since the alternative of INFORMED CONSULTATION that I wanted can now only be carried out with no support from council officers?”
The vicar’s response was ‘MYSTERIOUS’ to say the least, “There appears to be confusion about the manner of the RPS review consultation undertaken last year. The review was carried out using an online survey, supported by posters in each community and the local coucillors and Neighbourhood Partnerships being responsible for informing people of the survey. ”
And what are councillors supposed to do with the responses?
What a shambles. As we correctly said six months ago, “Quite how Marv thinks a part time councillor on £13k a year with lots to do can also adequately research the views of up to 3,000 HOUSEHOLDS and then collate these views into a meaningful document to take action on is anybody’s guess.”
What a waste of everybodies’ time this has been.
Oooh the irony of a Lib Dem councillor complaining about a rigged consultation? I was once involved in the Lib Dems ‘Workplace parking levy’ consultation. As an employer I was asked to take part in the consultation which was supposed to gauge the feeling of business towards a potential levy. First question in the CONsultation; Would you like to pay the levy in your business rates or as a stand alone charge and that was it giving the Lib Dems the ability to say 100% of respondents want the charge we just to work out how to charge it. Of course I immediately demanded that I was removed from the consultation which I was promised I was. Surprise, surprise a FOI request some 10 weeks later showed I hadn’t been removed and someone had completed the rest of my consultation and submitted it. Obviously BCC claimed this was a one off and would never happen again. A few Months later I was chatting to someone and the subject came up and they had done exactly the same, I suggested they do a FOI and once again to my complete surprise their details hadn’t been removed, their completed consultation had also been submitted.
Anthony, this is how fucks I give …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..loads
I actually read one of these notices and looked at the plan for my area.Yes a total shambles, I did respond with pictures of vehicles all parked on the pavement on bus routes where there have been several accidents and yet they wanted to restrict parking in cul de sacs where there is no through traffic.
Naturally there was no responce to my e mail.
With regard to the councillors the 3 I saw at a neighbourhood meeting were visibly annoyed that I dare to attend to listen to how they are squandering our council tax on glorifying Hengrove Mounds dog toilet with benches steps and lighting.
Totally agree