Tory councillors should give good clear answers
BACK in 2018, the Government ordered private advisors work with West Berkshire Council to improve poor services for vulnerable children.
The council’s executive member for children’s services, Lynne Doherty, said: “It’s hard to be told that your performance isn’t good enough, but we accepted the report’s findings and recognise the steps we need to take to improve things for children and their families.”
Note the way she was at the top but blames others with the word “we”.
That councillor has now been promoted to leader of the council.
Yes, that same person who thinks the peasants shouldn’t dare to ask questions at council meetings.
Once again the Conservatives are patting themselves on the back for dismally mediocre performance.
Why should they listen to concerns of people with local knowledge?
They don’t need to consult with the plebs.
They as the elite are above all that.
It is true, some topics don’t come up much, but that might just be that those topics are being handled well or maybe, just maybe, the councillors with responsibility for those topics give good clear answers.
However, because the questions are seen in advance some other councillors really go to town in giving lengthy politician’s answers worthy of a masterclass.
As soon as the supplementary question (which they haven’t seen beforehand) comes in then the answers get rather shorter or they make an excuse that the supplementary isn’t relevant to the original and cut your microphone off.
How dare one ask a difficult question.
The reason there are so many questions on the football pitch is obvious to anyone with a room temperature IQ.
Those questions are a) not being answered, b) answered with half truths.
That I think is the real reason for Ms Doherty’s objections to questions.
She is hiding behind a mask of bluff and bluster and couldn’t possibly let slip that the council is wasting your money left right and centre on pipe dreams of grandeur.
JOHN GOTELEE
London Road
Newbury
REFERRING to the article in the NWN of February 11 on the question of CIL payments; it is quite simple – you either owe the money or you don’t.
It is the responsibility of the applicant to have the correct paperwork.
However, if you do not owe the money, but make a mistake on your paperwork, the council wait until you are “out of time” and then by using this loophole insist on payment.
As the article says, this is both morally and ethically wrong. It is not only wrong, it is downright deceitful. However the CIL guidelines also say that CIL payments can be reviewed at any time.
Therefore it is only right and proper that all CIL payments enforced by this method be reviewed and the applicants be reimbursed in full.
The honest ratepayers of West Berkshire deserve nothing less. Right this wrong.
ANDREW ROWLES
Elcot
POLICE have caught a Kintbury motorist behind the wheel after taking drugs.
In the dock at Reading Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, February 18, was Luke Pound.
The 22-year-old, of Gainsborough Avenue, admitted driving a Seat Ibiza when the amount of a cannabis metabolite in his system exceeded the specified limit. He further admitted driving without insurance and driving without a valid licence. All the offences were committed in Turnpike Road, Thatcham, on September 11 last year.
Mr Pound was fined £100, ordered to pay £85 costs plus a statutory victim services surcharge of £34 and he was banned from driving for 14 months.
A MAN has been fined for exceeding the weight limit in an HGV lorry.
Stephen David Harris of Lynch Lane, Lambourn, was due in the dock at Reading Magistrates’ Court on Friday, February 19.
But he did not turn up and the case was proved in the 54-year-old’s absence.
Mr Harris was convicted of driving a Mercedes Benz HGV in Ermin Street, Lambourn Woodlands, on July 24 last year when its weight exceeded the maximum permitted by West Berkshire Council regulations.
Mr Harris was fined £175 and ordered to pay £175 costs, plus a statutory victim services surcharge of £34.
POLICE are appealing for information following a theft and a break in.
Three car batteries and five aluminium wheels with tyres were stolen from a trailer in Colthrop Lane between 5.30pm and 7.30pm on Tuesday, February 23. Anyone with information, should contact the Police Enquiry Centre on 101 with reference number 43210077136.
Elsewhere, a garage was broken into in Flagstaff Square but no items were stolen. The break in occurred between 8.50pm and 9.30pm on Sunday. Contact 101 with reference number 43210084881 if you have information.