“The enforcement process is the most expensive and time consuming and that's how loopholes come into play.”Common sense – just what we expect from you Gareth! Just shows that there is sense in those old proverbs, don’t you think? …a stitch in time saves 9. In order to do the saving stitch, one has to be aware of the problem.This is why I got very excited a few years ago when we were told that there were going to be a string of people employed across the Borough on street scene work. They were going to be named and with responsibilities for their/our area. That fizzled out very quickly.I keep hearing stories of people saying that the process is corrupt. I don’t know what they mean by that, and I didn’t start to delve. The builder started the concept with a few loudly voiced notions about favours. I can take that or leave it because again you would have to tie down what ‘that’ means, and there are cross cultural views on this, which would take a page to analyse (and I am just an untrained observer). The blanket one might be that a person from one cultural background, asking an opinion from a Cllr, thinks that by answering that the Cllr is in favour of being friendly towards them, and is taking their side? They don’t realise that the answer the Cllr gave is impartial, and would be general in the same way to the other party involved? As I said, I am an observer, and this is a possible perception, I have formed.The supporting factor in the process is the standing of the process itself. As you say, it is the loopholes which allow people to get away with things, and if they use them as a standard way of working, which is unchecked, then these can be construed as discriminatory if they work to one parties advantage? Unchecked then they are blatantly unfair?One story I heard yesterday, is of a lady who rang the planning dept to complain about one of these big bungalows which had apparently broken the guidelines in size, proximity to the boundary, whatever. This is hearsay so I don’t know, but the hearsay comes from a very responsible member of the community and it was the neighbour who told him the story as it was happening. When she rang to complain she was told she was being racist. She then felt that she had to justify where she was coming from, and filled in gaps as to why she couldn’t be racist. She was told again that they didn’t matter, she was still racist. Stories like this don’t help the natural binding together of a community.Surely the factors which should have come into play, rather than making personal comments, would be to check it out and listen to the views of the neighbour, who is asking what is going on, because it affects her property? Maybe I am too naïve.What can we expect in this partnership when approaching the Council with a problem, concern or an idea? I know my experience, and I keep saying I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW IT ALL WORKS… or maybe we have an inkling of how it should work, and the confusion is born from the evidence that it isn’t working? … and it isn’t working because the expectations of what people want/need are not covered by what can be reasonable delivered?My ‘one man and his bike’ hasn’t come back to see me (I think that is on the pavement thread).The e-mail I received from within the fortress, hasn’t been followed through. It was a Friday, and in my reckoning Friday is a naff day to do anything important. I speak from a considerable experience of Managers who left the serious personnel stuff to a Friday, then took the day off leaving somebody else to do it for them. If I had anything to do with the personnel hand book, I would say one of the first rules is not to treat Friday as a ‘serious’ day. So it is possible he was suffering from end of the week depression, and regretted e-mailing me, by Monday?The pavement outside this house has again been ‘mashed’. After a huge delivery truck yesterday (it had a big grab hook on the back) the workers, realising the state it left the pavement, carefully placed a pallet over the top of the worst bit, and added two cones to each end of the pavement where their work has been going on. I really don’t think they are being funny, I really think that they are working at their best and don’t realise that there is a likelihood that somebody might fall over the pallet or cones in the dark. Who is it that should explain how we would like them to work and why? If there were a named builder in charge then everyone could expect them to be responsible for the methods of working – including health and safety issues for the workers.
Sarah Felstead ● 7402d