Democracy in action....

Was recently seen at Brentwood Council when councillors voted on the issue of approving the William Hunter way development (or not!).

It now transpires that pretty much the last legal hurdle the council had to get over has now been cleared, in that the Secretary of State for Communities has decided not to call the development in for review. The Gazette reports one protestor as saying:

"The whole process represents a dark day for local democracy.

Nope, it's actually a very good day for local democracy when the Secretary of State (who is herself an MP for a North West seat and a member of a party that has two representatives on our borough council) decides not to overrule the decisions of the democratically elected local representatives.

I've expressed concerns already at the rules that means councillors who state an opinion on developments outside of the council chamber (to the extent that if you are elected on a platform for or against a proposed development, you're automatically excluded from voting on that development) but the fact remains that an absolute majority of councillors voted for this proposal.

What is equally amusing is that the protestor goes on to say that Brandon Lewis has failed to

to engage and captivate local people's imagination

I've only met Brandon a couple of times - and both of those were in passing - but I can say from having attended last week's council meeting that it was quite clear Councillor David Kendall for one would have to disagree, given that under Brandon's leadership of the local Conservative party the number of seats held by the Conservatives on the council has gone from nine to twenty eight.

Speaking as a Tory, if that's a failure, then here's to a lot more of it at the next general election!

William Hunter way and democracy

I attended last night's Council meeting to have a look at local democracy in action - I had been told the main focus would be the budget, but it turned out the main topic of interest was the proposed planning development for William Hunter Way, a matter of intense controversy locally. The plans were being brought to full council for approval - leading to the public areas being packed with opponents of the developments.

I have no strong views on the development - I haven't studied it in enough detail, but it was clear to me that the only way this was going to fail to pass was if there were sufficent opposition from within the local Conservative group (as a majority of the council is 19 and they make up 28 of the 37 councillors). In the end - despite the absence of three Conservative councillors, and a "rebellion" and a few rebels voting against, 20 votes were cast for the development and it passed.

The thing that appalls me though is the number of councillors who had to step out of the chamber for the debate because they had publicly expressed opposition outside of council to the development - this was a cross party issue, as Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative councillors all excused themselves. Some of the councillors actually represented the ward in which this controversial development is to be built. Legal advice was that this was a requirement laid down by central government.

If this was a swear blog, I'd make the Devil's Kitchen look the soul of reason. This is totally ridiculous - what's the point of electing local councillors if the moment they start to represent the interests of those who voted for them they lose their ability to vote on the issues they care about? It wouldn't have made any difference in this case, but it's still fundamentally flawed.

That's how to do it....

Kirklees District Council have announced they are to have an "independent review" ... "into the way social services dealt with Shannon Matthews's family before the schoolgirl was kidnapped by her mother."

The Council Leader, Robert Light, said they had ordered the review "because any responsible local authority would want to be constantly reviewing its processes and working practices".

Good man!

There's no way that social services can 100% guarantee the safety of any child in a dangerous and abusive position. The law designed to protect the rights of parents and children can get in the way, and busy overworked social workers can make mistakes (and indeed, even social workers with a managable workload could be deceived and this isn't a black or white issue - they are dealing with various shades of grey).

It is possible - maybe even probable - that Social Services in the area followed procedures and genuinely felt there was no need for Shannon and her siblings to be on the "at risk" register. This doesn't need to be a witchhunt (for a start, despite everything, thankfully nobody died) - what it needs to be is an opportunity for a local organisation to look at itself, see if there are lessons to be learnt and then learn them.