We’ll Listen when the People Get It Right
Putting “People at the Heart of Everything We Do”. It sounds like a great slogan. What better way could you find to wear your heart so clearly on your sleeve?
The trouble is just as in parking, just as in emissions charges, just as it is in the Upton Park Centre redevelopment.
Consistently Mayor Fiaz has had responses from the public that go contrary to her plans. Her response, and that of her councillors is to ignore them. The council received one response in favour of the plan, and 38 opposed.
That does not mean that the development should not go ahead, it might be a very good development and it is obviously one she inherited from the previous administration.
But is it too much to ask that she is honest with the public? If the decision has in fact been made, don’t kid people that they have a chance to amend it. Your residents are adults. They know that they will not get everything that they want. Just don’t take them for fools and try being straight with them.
It’s not too much to ask.
The report in the Recorder noted some disquiet amongst the comrades;
Cllr Whitworth obviously had urgent business elsewhere so couldn’t make the vote, but he did find time to bemoan the fact that there were voluntary groups who after six years, were unable to find suitable premises, (alas he did not say how many).
Cllr Blaney appeared to be somewhat critical of his colleagues’ “offensive” tone in respect of the discussion. Whether this was because the committee members were demonstrating a lack of cultural sensitivity or whether it was just Cllr Blaney asserting his woke credentials, we do not know.
Cabinet member Cllr Beckles was outraged by the fact that residents had not been given sufficient information on the project. When invited to move deferral of the scheme in order to disseminate further information, Cllr Beckles declined. His desire to see the residents get the “full facts” was not sufficiently strong to ensure that they got them. It sounds just a little like vacuous virtue signalling or playing to the gallery.
It seems that Cllr Griffiths might have been the only one talking sense when he said, “the fact somebody would prefer something different on the site was not a good reason to refuse planning permission”.
Indeed, so don’t foster false expectations.