Letters: September 23, 2016

Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Limits to optimism

HAVING read the column by the Swindon Borough Council leader, David Reynard, I was left wondering just how many residents share his optimism about council performance (Adver, September 15).

Mr Reynard claimed Swindon Borough Council is performing well because the Local Government Ombudsman had fewer complaints about the council than it did about neighbouring local authorities.

I do not believe this data can be regarded as a good performance indicator. There are far too many factors and variables which Mr Reynard failed to consider.

The residents of Swindon have had to put up with a dismal town centre, awful developments and appalling traffic conditions for decades.

Their expectations of council services may have diminished to such an extent that the council may have become complacent.

Poor services and a poor environment may just be seen as a way of life.

Conversely, residents living in pleasant areas such as Bath or North East Somerset may have greater expectations and demand better council service provision.

The Local Government Ombudsman has limited powers. He can investigate complaints about maladministration and service failure but the council has the right to provide the services it deems necessary and to decide how it spends its budgets.

Swindon Borough Council may be more proficient at providing excuses for not carrying out works than other local authorities are.

They may have a standard excuse such as, due to budgetary constraints we are unable to complete the works which you require us to do.

Faced with this explanation what could the Local Government Ombudsman do?

Mr Reynard says: “If residents are not satisfied with the way the council has responded to a complaint, there is an option of asking the Ombudsman to investigate.”

Would he suggest the numerous residents who oppose the creation of new parish councils, oppose the closure of libraries, don’t like the state of the town centre, object to poor traffic planning or don’t like the state of grounds maintenance should complain to the Ombudsman?

How does he compare this massive level of dissatisfaction with the selective process which leads to complaints reaching the Ombudsman? He may take satisfaction from the Ombudsman data but I don’t.

I believe the reports and letters which appear on the pages of the Swindon Advertiser provide a much better performance indicator for Swindon Borough Council than the number of complaints reaching the Local Government Ombudsman do.

K KANE

Wharf Road, Wroughton

....

Sustainable services

I’M WRITING with regards to the council-established health and social care social enterprise, SEQOL, being wound up in the next few months, with 400 staff transferring from the organisation to Swindon Borough Council and others transferring to the Great Western Hospital.

SEQOL was set up in 2011 with staff from Swindon Council and the then Primary Care Trust transferred to the organisation. At the time SEQOL was seen by the then Coalition Government and the Conservative administration on Swindon Council as a trend-setting organisation for how health and social care services would be delivered.

This has turned out to be a huge misjudgement, with SEQOL staff hastily being transferred after the organisation’s financial problems.

At the time SEQOL was proposed being set up in 2011, Labour councillors refused to support social care services being outsourced to a newly established, outside organisation because of the uncertainty this would lead to the quality of council services.

I would like to welcome back all SEQOL staff being transferred back to the council.

I welcome the council’s reassurance that the transfer of staff won’t affect local services, which will continue to be delivered in the same way.

I also welcome the fact all staff will be transferred back to the council on the terms and conditions they had with SEQOL.

I do, however, think the closure of SEQOL proves the setting up of this company to run health and social care services was a five-year mistake and a fundamental misjudgement made by the Coalition Government and the Conservative administration on Swindon Council.

They said this type of delivery of health and social services would be the best in terms of value for money and for the quality of services.

The rapid closure of SEQOL and the bringing back of services shows that this argument was a nonsense.

We hope health and adults’ services will now be delivered in a sustainable way under the council and Great Western Hospital as it should have been over the last five years.

COUN JIM GRANT

Swindon Labour Group Leader

....

Inappropriate language

BOTH Mr K Kane and David Collins, although readers of my letters, are under the rather bizarre misapprehension that I am a member of the Labour Party.

I am not a member of the Labour Party nor am I a Labour supporter or even a Labour voter. I have made this very clear in numerous letters I have written criticising the Labour Party. I am a member of the Green Party.

My letter was to take David Collins to task for using inappropriate language, not to support a party that I do not agree with.

Mr K Kane says it is acceptable to call people with mental problems Loonies because it in the dictionary. Every word in the English language is in the dictionary, even the word that is at present considered the most rude, would either of these gentlemen call a member of the Labour Party that word?

Would they consider calling a black person nigger or a Jewish person a yid? Of course not, although both are in the dictionary, and were in common usage 60 years ago.

I will not defend the Monster Raving Loony Party, maybe Roly Gillard would like to write a letter justifying their name.

Being called foolish or ridiculous, or even downright stupid for something that you have written is fair comment in a vigorous debate, but is an attempt to stifle debate if said about something that hasn’t yet been written.

Let us not forget a couple of years ago the Mayor of Swindon inappropriately called sufferers of Down’s syndrome Mongols. He apologised and I think that David Collins should rethink and apologise. Meanwhile, I think Mr K Kane should reread my letter.

STEVE THOMPSON

Norman Road, Swindon

....

Lunacies of capitalism

DID David Collins get his “explanation” of capitalist economics from a greedy exploiter from Charles Dickens?

His letter (Adver, September 19) is an ideological alibi which sheds no light on how the system works.

I look forward to Mr Collins showing off his grasp of biology by explaining how the elephant got its trunk from a close encounter with a crocodile.

Over the years his “business and finance” defence plea has been repeatedly used to justify the unjustifiable.

The need for profit (for the rich) has been used to justify slavery, child labour, the impossibility of a 12-hour limit to the working day, 10-hour day, eight-hour day, the minimum wage, health and safety legislation, etc.

Just about any social advance, we were told, would make profits impossible and result in the collapse of society.

The lunacies of capitalism abound. It is the first system historically which goes into crisis when too much is produced.

Our ancestors would never believe “overproduction” could be a problem. Capitalism has given us policies where food is destroyed to jack up market prices, as millions starve.

In some periods building workers experience unemployment, millions of bricks are stockpiled while homelessness grows.

On a more mundane level the Labour governments Collins snipes at have shared pretty much the same obsequious grovelling to “business and finance” that Collins himself shows.

Indeed, in the years since the war Conservative governments tended to borrow more and pay back less than Labour governments.

I’m sure we should be more worried if Mr Collins agreed with us than with his vacuous abuse.

PETER SMITH

....

Make yourself heard

I HAVE received notice from Swindon Borough Council’s planning department that an appeal has been made in respect of plans to demolish Swindon’s tented market in Market Street.

The scheme to demolish the existing tented market and put up a two-storey building comprising of four food and drink outlets and one shop unit in its place was overwhelmingly voted down by councillors, after much opposition and petitioning from residents, including myself.

So what has the property speculator CIL Ltd done to think that he can overturn the will of local people, and all of our councillors and get his own way?

He has taken his appeal to the ‘rubber stamping’ remote Planning Inspectorate in Bristol.

How many times now have we seen vehement opposition to planning proposals in Swindon overturned by the ‘Bristol rubber-stamping brigade’?

The letter I received states all previous comments made concerning the scheme prior to its rejection will be passed on to both the appellant and the Planning Inspectorate, and that people who wish to re-iterate, withdraw, modify, or add to their comments may do so at http://acp.planningportal.gov.uk. Alternatively write to The Planning Inspectorate, 3/20 Kite Wing, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Bristol, BS1 6PN, or email using reference APP/U3935/W/16/3156260.

I must admit that I found it very strange indeed that the very day after the overwhelming rejection of the scheme had taken place at the council meeting, that I happened to go past the tented market and saw Jo Heaven the person that had lead the fight against its demolition and also for a suitable market hall replacement, packing all of her effects from her stall, ‘The Emporium of Loveliness’ in to black bin liners.

I was mystified at this, and so I decided to have a chat to Jo Heaven, who informed me that she now had a new shop that she was taking her existing business to a new shop site in Commercial Road, which would be much warmer in the winter, had more space, and had an onsite toilet. She thanked me for my efforts in helping to oppose the plans for yet more eating establishments in the Town as we agreed that there were more than enough already. I then suggested to her that the property speculator would appeal and I recall that her reply was, ‘I have no doubt what so ever that he will’.

This does not of course mean that we should all now just give up the fight for a thriving and sustainable market in Swindon, as how can we possibly have a ‘Market Street’ in the Town which is devoid of any market?

What is more we should oppose the previously rejected plans simply so as to put a stop the ludicrous ‘ Bristol Planning Inspectorate, remote rubber stamping regime’ that so many previous property speculative appellants have relied upon so as to ignore the will of Swindon people, and also net themselves a pretty penny in to the bargain.

GA WOODWARD

Nelson Street, Swindon

....

Thank you for helping

MY MOTHER suffered a stroke on August 21. The care she has received from the paramedics to A&E and to Falcon ward has been outstanding, caring, kind and very respectful.

We cannot speak highly enough of all of you.

Many thanks to all at the Great Western Hospital. How lucky are we in Swindon to have such a wonderful place.

JANE ANSELL

Swindon