The last meeting of the West Area Committee was a downright disappointment. We described it as follows:
….we should have had a presentation from County Highways on the Localism Budget. However for some reason the presentation materials didn?t turn up so all we got was some fractured bits of information.
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The message we were given was that the County Council was concentrating on maintenance.Any actual improvements that district and parish councillors had put forward under the ?Localism Budget? couldn?t be guaranteed, as the budget was ?on hold?. We were told very little, except that there would be a little meeting of Councillor Keith Hudson and the three chairs of the area committees (all Conservatives) to decide what improvements would still be carried out. What?s happening in the County Budget is not clear (and any cuts being made are being made before anything the coalition government has determined)
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During this item the Conservatives councillors present sat there in glum silence, except for County Councilllor Mavis Webster, who said that she was trying to get the senior highways people in the County to recognise that Rochford existed.
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On the Lib Dem side Bruce Smart stressed the importance of getting something in Hullbridge Road opposite Lubards Farm, Chris Black pointed out that yellow lines were NOT expensive in terms of the highways budget and Ron Oatham mentioned that if County Highways were concentrating on maintainance, why hadn?t they fixed potholes he had reported 27 weeks ago?
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All in all the ?Localism? is being turned into ?Yokelism? – we are being kept in the dark as if we were a bunch of country bumpkins.
However, the next meeting – on November 30th , in Rawreth Village Hall, looks a bit more promising. First of all, there’s always been a good number of the public at Rawreth meetings. And secondly – and rather unexpectedly – County Highways are attending.
Let’s hope for a good turn-out from the public, plenty of information from officers, and plenty of listening from councillors.
Just to reassure readers that the dropped kerb at Lubards to assist crossing at this point will be raised at every oppotunity. Sadly this is about all that may be possible
Just a comment Bruce ,why do you keep wanting to raise a none existing dropped kerb !!