Our council is in an odd situation. David Cameron likes it to be a radical local authority that tests policies that might be rolled out nationally, so we get to experience the cutting edge of Tory policies. On the other hand it is a London Council ostensibly under the Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson. The problem is that Boris doesn't really like Dave and wants his job one day. Dave, unsurprisingly, doesn't like Boris much either.At the moment our Council, led by Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, seems to be more Cameroon than Boris aligned. This has already led to some spectacular fallings out, and we now have yet another over the Western Extension Zone of the congestion charge, which Boris said he would scrap if Londoners voted against it. They did.
He doesn't want to anymore. So he has said that there needs to be lots more consultation! Unsurprisingly our Council is not impressed and you can read what they think here.
I just make the same point I've made before - if our Council really can't get on with the Mayor because of internal Conservative party politics, is that really in the best interests of all of us who actually live here?
It seems that no one can do anything without wide consultation first, as evidenced by the parking issue in zone G after Westfield opened. Judicial revue is the big issue and so everything takes an age to follow through. The coucil should have taken early action to mitigate obvious difficulties but did not because of the threat of judicial review. So now we have to be a Westfield carpark in the neighbouring roads.
ReplyDelete[...] Or maybe it’s his way of warning those in power within the Conservative Party, such as his not so great friend Boris Johnson, that he is still a force to be reckoned with and therefore to be listened to. Who knows. But one [...]
ReplyDelete[...] that our Council has fallen out with the Mayor on this and this, and relations between them are so poor, what influence do they really have left with City Hall to lobby for the Bush’s [...]
ReplyDelete[...] that our Council has fallen out with the Mayor on this and this, and relations between them are so poor, what influence do they really have left with City Hall to lobby for the Bush’s interests? [...]
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