Don’t think that all our elected councillors are on hand 24/7

Some of them, apparently, are up for it 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Others, it seems, prefer to save their energies for office hours.

Perhaps it was naive of me to assume that our elected councillors would belong to the former category. Well, we live and learn. Just because I know of one councillor who considers part of his duty is to be available at all times, I was clearly wrong to believe that this would apply to all.

To begin at the beginning. Last Sunday I received an extremely incoherent phone call from a chap who said he knew me.

It took nearly 15 minutes for me to understand the extent to which he was troubled. I eventually found out where he lives. He had recently suffered a stroke and found it nearly impossible to string words together to make understandable sentences. I went round and knocked at his door.

I think he hadn’t believed that I’d do so. After a while he was able to explain to me that, because of his condition (he lives alone) he receives regular visits from NHS nurses.

The reason he had called me was this. Because of parking restrictions, his nurses had to park several minutes walking time from his door – even though there was space in the street – causing them not inconsiderable inconvenience.

Hoping that I could find out who to talk to about the problem, I phoned a councillor whose number I have on file, hoping for advice.

I was told that the councillor was unavailable – it was Sunday. So that was that.

On Monday, I made the mistake of phoning the council office in the hope of finding someone who might be able (or prepared) to help.

Anyone who has phoned the council without knowing the name of the person to whom they wished to speak will sympathise with my frustration.

After 12 minutes of hanging on, listening to unpleasant music and being told my call was important, I gave up and emailed.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a satisfactory return message two days later.

‘I made the mistake of phoning to find someone to help ’