Tuesday 19 October 2010

Openness & transparency (or Catch 22 in Camelford)

If residents from the Camelford area had known what was going on in secret in the Cornwall Council Star Chambers a few weeks ago they would have sought to ask questions about their town's leisure centre at the scheduled Cabinet meeting on 13th October. Except that they couldn't, because it was an item concerning the budget, and the council decided to postpone discussion of the budget from that meeting to 27th October instead. Now the people of Camelford have been told they cannot ask questions about the budget at the 27th October meeting either - because it's a special meeting called to discuss only one item. Which is, er, the budget! Brilliant!

The Cornwall Council cabinet member with responsibility for leisure centres is St Ives Conservative Joan Symons, who has declined the opportunity to talk about budget cuts on BBC Radio Cornwall but has instead written to the Camelford Town Forum:
"I understand you will have a good representation at the Cabinet meeting next Wednesday, where you will have the opportunity to hear the full picture of the savings that Cornwall Council need to make. I fully understand your concerns but there will be many unpopular and hard decisions to make.
Kind Regards
Joan"



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