Th, Nov 17, 2005Serious farce getting even more serious
Yesterday
Wednesday 16th November 2005, at Full Council meeting we asked a number
of questions from the public bench to be answered by the Mayor and his
Cabinet.
One of the questions referred again to the alleged consultation held in 1999.
The Mayor is saying that it was at this public consultation that the public expressed the "strong support for relocation and modernisation of the facility" that entitles the Council to close the Ladywell Leisure Centre.
Unfortunately, after extensive research, the Council is unable to produce any documents about it and we have to come to the conclusion that this consultation never actually happened.
Yesterday, after reading yet another contradictory answer about this sorry tale, we used our supplementary question to ask the Mayor to disassociate himself from the pretense that the people of Lewisham had expressed the desire to have their swimming pool closed and moved elsewhere at a public consultation.
The Mayor didn't take this genuine life-buoy and Cllr McGarrigle replied to our supplementary question.
Cllr Mc Garrigle, maybe to make clear that what she was about to say was only some sort of light-weight comment rather than the reporting of a fact, started her answer with the ritual "it is my understanding that..."
In spite of all this care she managed to contradict herself by saying that the consultation happened in 1999, then in 2000 and then again in 1999.
Contested on that and lost for words she closed the matter pretending that we had been answered.
Unfortunately the matter is anything but closed.
To keep on pretending that the local community and the users of the Ladywell Leisure Centre had been asked their opinion about the Council's plan and that they expressed "strong support for relocation" when it is now clear that this never happened is a serious misconduct.
It works against the relationship of trust between elected representatives and the community they represent and is greatly damaging public confidence in local democracy.
We can't see how such behaviour can possibly fall within the code of conduct that any elected representative should keep in mind when exercising a public role.
It seems that with this particular issue all avenues within the Council have been explored and we should now be looking at the possibility of a formal complaint to the Standards Board for England. ...read more...