Area Committee

Last night we had Inner North West Area Committee. (Is there any institution other than a Council that would call a community "Inner North West" ? ) Its the first time - for a few hours- that I have regretted standing down next year. Despite the bickering and powerlessness of Area Committees much good local government is done. As there was only one spending request on the agenda much of the meeting was spent in Cathartic moaning. Non existing reports from Street scene managers, Litter bins not installed 2 years after we paid for them, the councils continued failure to schedule a round table meeting about the Girls High School Site etc etc. We took some good decisions.

- blocked an officer attempt to sand bag us with a late funding request for a highly dubious employment scheme.

- over turned a recommendation on the boundaries of the proposed Hyde Park DPPO

- agreed a special meeting to do justice to the recent Area management review about further devolution.

However the structure of the meeting showed the cracks in the system. It last nearly three hours and we still had to defer an item for lack of time and not really do justice to several others. How on earth are we to take on extra responsibilities if we spend most of most meetings moaning about the ones we have got?

There was a reasonable public turnout because the Tinshill Recreation Ground Fence saga was on the agenda. However the lengthy public spat on the subject may have been cathartic but what did it achieve? As is always the case I had worked out a "game plan" about points I wanted to raise and things to get agreed. As the meeting was in grumpy mood and I'm a grumpy person I got 10/10 , an unusually high score. However that's part of the problem. The things in life that get scores are games.