Bill Cawley

THE report on the debate on the children’s home at a recent council meeting did not include any counter arguments advanced by SMDC councillors.

They can be briefly outlined: Councillor Wilkinson’s motion was a ‘pious’ one in that it could go nowhere and could not effect change at government level because it ran counter to all existing statutory and case law on the subject.

It was an illogical motion if it was directed against houses with large numbers of children in them, then what is the difference if noise is the issue the issue between a house with 3 ‘looked after’ children resident and a typical house with 3 children resident?

The motion overlooked the problem of growing numbers of kids in care worsened by covid and cuts in child care provision by the state.

Above all there was a humanitarian argument that ‘looked after children’ need to live somewhere and the points advanced by the supporters were eloquently rebutted by my colleague Cllr Jill Salt. Objectors were shedding ‘crocodile’ tears on the plight of vulnerable children; they simply did not want them in their area.

Ultimately we are talking about children in need and not criminals which is, I suspect, the undercurrent of this objectionable motion.

I thought afterwards of the crocodile tears dropped and recalled lines of the poet Shelley. “His big tears, for he wept well, Turned to mill-stones as they fell. And the little children, who

Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem,

Had their brains knocked out by them”.