Hello everyone,

I thought you might be amused by the little local difficulty we are having with good old SODC!

I presented them with our petition, all 1065 signatures, naively thinking that they would have to listen. They are public servants paid to provide us the residents with services......well that's what I always thought anyway!

And you might expect that presenting a petition to the Chair and CEO of the Council would generate a certain amount of heat and activity, after all we are talking about 1065 Council Tax payers, who pay good money year in year out for the pretty dreadful service levels that we receive. 

Well not a lot happens for a day or two, in fact more than a day or two, and after a time I start asking around and prompting them to respond because after all this is a live matter that currently sits before the Authority and is moving through their system pretty quickly, so we do want someone to sit up take notice and take action sooner rather than later please SODC!

Anyway after quite a few days and adding a few more people into the circulation list we finally get a response......and here it is verbatim:-

I am responding to your email dated 1 December to Mark Stone, Chief Executive, and Councillor David Bretherton, Chairman of the council, relating to a petition in respect of Thames Farm, Reading Road, Lower Shiplake. The council’s petition scheme excludes the consideration of petitions relating to planning applications. I have therefore passed details of the petition to colleagues in the planning service who will respond to you direct on the issues raised.

Regards

Steven Corrigan
Democratic Services Manager

Legal and Democratic 

Ahhh right.......they have a scheme to deal with petitions, but it doesn't apply to Planning matters it seems. A little bit weird really that they chose to ignore the voice of 1065 people. But ok I do as I'm told and send in a complaint with the petition attached. After a couple more days back comes the response......the person that will investigate your complaint is one of the people who are the subject of the complaint......oh boy these guys are good, you have to give it to them.............and we pay for this rubbish...yikes!

Anyway its getting late but I thought people might like to hear about democracy in action. I've copied both the BBC and the local press into this little exchange of correspondence, and also asked SODC complaints to consider a further complaint. This one is all about a broken complaints system!

And finally.......for those who missed it, we made the BBC again 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmbWT-0QMs

The moody looking guy in the dark glasses is yours truly!

Have a great but safe weekend everyone and thank you for all your support.

Peter Boros 

TFAG