St George West councilor, Ron Stone has now put his opposition to the Railway Path in writing:
My feelings on the issue tend to remain one of severe concern, and at present if asked to support this suggestion I would vote against it.
He also says:
I am due to attend a meeting with Mark Bradshaw the Cabinet Executive Member for Transport on Wednesday evening and this is the major item on the agenda.
So it looks like Labour councillors are meeting to arrange the inevitable climbdown.
And judging from Labour’s Bristol West Parliamentary candidate Paul Smith’s comments on this blog:
The plans are currently drifting in a virtual world of consultants, partnerships and council officers. I am not aware of any ‘political’ meeting that has endorsed these plan.
It looks like Labour are going to try and pretend its’ all the fault of officers who were working without the knowledge of councillors.
Mind you, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs when your best defence is to admit to being an incompetent who doesn’t know what’s going on.
But then we’ve been saying on this blog for some time now that this is a Labour administration in office but not in power
To “pretend it’s all the fault of officers who were working without the knowledge of councillors” is to accept responsibility for the problem.
The people of Bristol elect councillors to run Bristol city council. If councillors allow officers to work up this kind of plan without their knowledge, then they are not doing what we elect them to do.
sarah, this is exactly my argument.
it’s thanks to blogs like this that many of us are now a lot clearer about who is in charge of running bristol & it seems pretty clear that it isn’t the elected councillors.
the council house has been a hub of bumbling, excuse making nitwits for far to long in my opinion.
Yes, I know… and it’s the same argument the Blogger is making., and has been making. But it seems as if it has to be made again and again, and in the clearest terms possible.
One thing about the Railway Path fiasco is that it has made it more obvious to more of us that things in BCC aren’t as they should be.
the problem with our council, & it’s one i have said before on the blog, is that over the last decade or more, it’s the same old names that crop up either in the council house or on the party campaign teams.
considering that the council has failed to deliver in terms of service & have wasted tax payers money on an endless number of failed schemes, isn’t it about time that people started to demand a change in personnel at the council house?
maybe some independant representatives that can question where all the money from the increased taxes & the vast amount of land sales is disappearing to??
instead we get the same old drivel from the 3 mainstream parties, who over the last decade have failed miserably!!
Only the last decade redzone?
I’d raise that to at least 3 decades of failure, waste and incompetence 😉
Any advance on 3?
methuselah, please note, i did say decade or more!!
& i agree it is probably more. it’s just the last 10 years have particularly nosedived!!!
yet, on investigation, the failed councillors & consultants of the past years are all still involved somewhere, either in office or lurking in the background.
it really is like an exclusive mafia club!!!
I don’t think it’s the fact it’s the same faces as such, it’s the fact that those faces just aren’t any good at their job. The worry with getting new faces in is that it over looks the much bigger need to have competent faces in. There are some councillors who are good at their jobs and ask difficult questions, there are many more who aren’t.
Personally i think we should halve the number of them, double the pay, and get competent people who can do it as a full time and exclusive job, rather than just because they’re retired or are combining the role with climbing their way up the party political ladder.
The fact is that right now, the parties are really struggling to find enough people even wanting to put their names forward, especially in safe seats, so will take pretty much anyone, regardless of ability. It’s not the way most multi million pound organisations are run…
Good points made by AC here.
The councillor elected in my ward last May doesn’t appear to understand what’s going on, and he doesn’t seem to be clear about his role in decision making. Apparently the local political group doesn’t exist (or doesn’t meet) so he’s got no reference point, nobody pushing him, and he can blow about in the wind… open to influence from other councillors, or worse.
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HAVE YOUR SAY!
It’s important for members of the public to attend any future WEP forums as they even admit they “need evening sessions to engage more members of the public/employers”.
More information from their document:
There’s going to be a lot going on in 2008. Look out for news and consultation on the Greater Bristol Bus Network, Weston Package, Transport Innovation Fund and Bus Rapid Transit. Finally don’t forget the next Joint Transport Forum, autumn 2008.
http://www.westofengland.org/downloads/ProceedingsoftheJointTransportForum2007.pdf