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Letter: 'Neighbourhood councils are a local scandal' - 27/11/09
With reference to your article about Neighbourhood Councils on November 23 ("Council boss defends area councils scheme)", here is my take on the position.
With reference to your article about Neighbourhood Councils on November 23 ("Council boss defends area councils scheme)", here is my take on the position. At the council meeting where neighbourhood councils were agreed, only five or six councillors (I was one of them) raised a note of concern about the additional allowances that this has generated (over 100,000 going to Conservative councillors without any evidence of additional work).
It was clear that Cllr Cereste had no clue as to whether it would work or not, could not say where the money was coming from to fund it; under cross examination he was heard to say "I'm sure it will pay for itself in the end".
Hardly inspirational, evidence-based reassurance for taxpayers! But the nodding dogs won the day, and the following item on setting up Neighbourhood Councils (after the expenses were agreed) was not even debated!
Once the Neighbourhood Councils began, complaints from residents came across my desk about the lack of publicity for them. The agendas were set so that if you did go along, it was difficult to raise any points of your own. Neighbourhood Councils still have no power other than "consultees", despite the Council spin machine's (and Councillor Cereste's) attempts to imply otherwise.
Now Parish Councils, who clearly had not been consulted about the idea, are saying it might impinge on their role. And who can blame them, given that this idea just landed in May with no consultation, no feedback, no justification of the spending and no cost benefit analysis? In fact, the only certainty with it was that all the councillors who were going to benefit seemed very grateful to Cllr Cereste and very sure that they were already doing "lots of extra work" to justify the money.
As for the promise to scrap them if they don't work, isn't that just an admission that Councillor Cereste did not introduce them because he could prove that they would benefit the city? I doubt that those councillors now lining their pockets will nod through a scrappage scheme in the same way they eagerly stuck up their hands in May.
Any private business that operated like this would be in liquidation within months.
I just hope that local voters in West Ward next month and across the city next year turn out for elections to turn out these Conservative councillor personal wealth creation specialists; it looks like the MP expenses scandal all over again to me, but at a local level.
Stephen Goldspink
Councillor, East Ward
St Mary's Close
Peterborough
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