31 October 2005

A little local difficulty

Local politics round my way is getting more interesting daily. An exciting and incendiary public meeting in the village tonight was about the nastiest and noisiest assembly I’ve seen since Heseltine swung the mace. The County Council is using a risk-based statistical method (provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) to trim fire stations from the county’s capacity. Our own mini West Lothian Question means the closure of our little part-time fire station has been approved by dozens of county councillors who’ll never visit, let alone represent, Radlett.

Although we’re now in what the local authority calls a ‘consultation period’ the whole thing smells like a done deal. The statistics are in and the council’s decision has already been made. I have a feeling that the only hope now is for a lot more of tonight’s deliberate and bloody-minded street politics.

Since the only way I got into the over-crowded hall was by pretending to be a photographer, I felt obliged to take a few pics.

2 responses to “A little local difficulty”

Paul

9 November 2005

Hello Radlett
Do you guys actually need a firestation? I’d quite like a firestation round the corner from us but we don’t have one. Times move on, you used to have a firestation, now you don’t. Maybe you could keep your firestation if you agreed to a refugees’ shelter or an Addaction centre alongside it?
Steve Bowbrick

9 November 2005

There’s a fire station less than half a mile from your house if I remember rightly. You urban types get much better fire coverage than we do anyway – especially if you live in a deprived area where fires are more frequent (that would be your youth arsonists and your teenage mum chip-pan fires mostly).

A little local difficulty

2 responses to “A little local difficulty”

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