Day Four (Thursday)

I am posting Day 4 on Day 5 – because I didn’t have time to do it yesterday. I got home at just before midnight and frankly couldn’t face starting it then!

I note that the blog by the Leader of Council has been taken down. After four days of non-blogging I suppose it was inevitable. But why promise you’d do something, accept a commitment and then not do it? But then I’d say that was entirely of a piece with the failed promises of openness, transparency & democracy that Chris Holley so often promises but fails to deliver. So the public can know what the Lord Mayor, the Leaders of the Labour & Conservative parties and the sole Plaid councillor are up to – but not the Leader of Council. I for one would have it interesting to read what does. But we’ll never know.

I think that these blogs are a more appropriate activity for Local Democracy Week than the damnable and demeaning ‘I’m a Councillor get me out of here’ that the Authority ran previously. But is anyone actually reading them?

Well, I’ve now got the email total down to less than a hundred. Tomorrow, I’ll read the lot. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace…why answer do today what you can put off until tomorrow, especially if its an email!

A special Council Meeting has been called for this afternoon to discuss the Corporate Improvement Plan, I cannot attend that as I have pre-booked appointments that I have already postponed twice because of the interference of Council business and can’t do it again. Life goes on outside the Council Chamber. But I think that’s only the second Council meeting I’ve ever missed (other than being ill).

Electric Scooters

I spent a large amount of time today in dealing with the continuing saga of electric scooters in residential homes that I referred to in an earlier posting. The Authority now seems to have taken leave of its senses.

It has apparently commissioned a survey from the Fire Brigade and as a result is proposing to write to all tenants advising them that they cannot store electric scooters in common passageways and cannot charge them indoors etc etc. The result of this is that a great many tenants (including some long-term scooter users) will have to remove their scooters from their homes and (presumably) new or prospective tenants will not be allowed into these facilities if they are a scooter user. And what is the Authority proposing to do for these affected, mostly elderly and inform people? Well, they can be comforted by the knowledge that the Authority acknowledges that there is a problem and they are looking for a solution? But in the meantime…….

I guess that if this advice holds then it will apply right across the Mid & West Fire Authority area. I guess those tenants and residential homes will be really really grateful to the officers of the City & County of Swansea for bringing this issue to the fore. And all because one warden in one block wanted to stop two or three tenants from continuing to store or charge their scooters in the premises! Health & Safety is important but is supposed to be about managing risk – NOT an excuse for not doing something.