Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-11-14 07:08:19 - Graham Ellis
"We have the following options available for lunch ... Baguettes ... India ... Chinese ... Baked Potatoes ... Greasy Spoon ... McDonald's ... Fish and Chips"
That's not untypical of what we stay during first morning of a course, allowing our delegates to make a selection ... and almost inevitably, the group will come a decision and everyone's happy. And so are we - because we failed to mention the availability of the French Restaurant (breaks the budget), the Pubs (take too long) and the Pizza and Kebab places (never believe orders that are phones in at lunch time, so major nuisance in waiting to our staff)
You can call this "engineering the decision" if you like - and I think it's fair enough for us to do so as we've specified our remit and product. But where such engineering is done by a body that's there to represent the people and take into account all requirements in an area, it gives me serious misgivings. Let me give you an example from Wednesday evening, when we went to the budget consultation at Wiltshire (County) Council.
Speaker after speaker from The Council talked about "Salisbury, Trowbridge and Chippenham". Like a mantra - consistent to the extent that it can't have been a co-incidence. From Council Leader Jane Scott (from Chippenham) with words of agreement from Keith Robinson (who works for her in Trowbridge) ... from the business development manager through the chief financial officer, via the guy in charge of the environment. Every council employee who spoke, in fact.
I've news for Keith and Jane and their team - there's more towns than those in Wiltshire, and they're responsible for them ... even if they don't live in them themselves. Have a look at these population counts (2001 Census, rounded, from the Council's own web site:
40000 Salisbury
28000 Trowbridge
28000 Chippenham
--- Where the council wants to stop? ... Total population - 96,000
20000 Melksham
17000 Warminster
16000 Calne
13000 Devizes
11000 Westbury
11000 Corsham
11000 Wootton Bassett
10000 Bradford-on-Avon Total population - Wiltshire's second class towns - 109,000
--- And not to forget ... the likes of Malmesbury ... Marlborough ... Amesbury ... Cricklade ... Durrington ... Lyneham ... Tidworth ...
There was a fear that when Wiltshire went Unitary, perhaps one of the five towns of West Wiltshire would actually be large enough to get any attention - that Salisbury, because it's the largest and City, Trowbridge because it's the County seat, and Chippenham because it's the Council Leader's town would - like bullies in the class - get all the attention and investment. Perhaps I'm seeing signs of this already - even before the new council actually comes into existence. We need to raise the voice of Melksham .. of Warminster ... of Calne, Devizes, Westbury, Corsham ...