Last week I went to a residents meeting to hear the results of a survey the council carried out last year. This might sound boring but actually it was quite entertaining.
This survey has been carried out every 4 years since 2000 and the results have been reviewed by a “consultation manager” at the council (that was her job title) who has no connection with the area or the regeneration portfolio.
Every measure of satisfaction was down, some of them by significant amounts. The “consultation manager” was most concerned about the drop in satisfaction with education provision – something like a 55% drop since 2000 – and said she didn’t know how to explain it. I did.
There were lots of promises from a council officer who got quite a hard time from a woman who said that she’d sat in the same room 10-15 years ago and been told the same things. Then Councillor Eric Carter stood up and launched into his “I’m an honest Yorkshireman” routine.
Carter is the cabinet member for regeneration and utterly devoid of a sense of humour. Part of his “honest Yorkshireman” routine was telling us he couldn’t apologise for things that the council had done before the Tories were elected and that they weren’t going to make promises they couldn’t keep. So, when I sat next to my sparring partner (who happens to be Carter’s mortal enemy) and pointed out that 18 months ago the Leader of the council, Andrew Eade, said that he would personally drive a bulldozer through the community centre within 12 month – the community centre we were sat in – he wasn’t very happy.
His first answer was “He didn’t say that”. So myself and Councillor Ashcroft disagreed and his answer then was “I’m not talking about that”! Then when he went on to say that he’d been walking around the estate not long ago “with two officers” (meaning council officers) and the person sitting next to me asked if he meant security officers, he rather abruptly responded “I don’t need security”. Naturally, we all laughed at him.
Come the end of the meeting he stormed out of the room without speaking to anyone, not even the council employees who were there.
And people think local politics is boring …
Technorati Tags: Telford, Eric Carter
He was even worse at full council last Thursday. Mind you, events are moving very quickly. Ron Odunaiya has taken voluntary redundancy! The Eade fightback begins! I hope he intends to pass on any monetary savings from the axing of Odunaiya’s post in the form of a council-tax precept reduction? I won’t hold my breath…
There’s a sitcom in this, surely?
Charlie, you could be right. Odunaiya was the muppet who sent the letter that kicked off the Penguins in the Park affair. It was his refusal to resign that resulted in Denis Allen being scapegoated and sacked from the cabinet and when Ken Clarke was appointed to the shadow cabinet that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Denis defected to UKIP and George to TAWPA (a residents group turned political party in Telford). In fact, it’s more of a farce than a sitcom!
George, did he resign because of the park?
No. Eade wants to get rid of the Leisure and Community Portfolio altogether. This has been on the cards for some time. I first became aware of it when I asked to see evidence against Denis that would justify his sacking.
I’m sorry my bad english – Can I find ebooks on this subject?