Councillors should answer the questions

I too have had a similar experience.

I attended a council meeting for the first time to ask a question relating to cycle lanes. When I asked the question I commented that I would like an answer to the question asked and not a question that they would like to have been asked. I asked for a clear unambiguous answer.

The answer given by Roger Stone was so detached from the question that it had no meaning at all and I refused to accept it. I was then heckled and shouted at by members in the chamber in an incredibly hostile way — it was like a lynch mob.

I was instructed by the Mayor to sit down but I refused. I said that I have a right to ask a question and the council is obliged to answer it.  

At this point I was told to sit down again and it felt like the place was erupting. Eventually the question was answered.

It seems to me that there is a distinct parallel between what happened to me and Mr Thirlwall’s experience except that in his case the police were called and arrested him. All we both wanted was an answer to a simple question. In my case if there was a breach of the peace it was clearly brought about by some councillors whose behaviour was simply appalling.

It is clear that, when challenged, the council’s policy is counter criticisms with evasive platitudes and ride out the problem. There is no attempt whatsoever to enter into any logical dialogue.

Councillors are elected members whose main responsibility is to the ratepayers of Rotherham. My experience is that, as a body, they are grotesquely self-serving and politically obsessed, paying more attention to their internal squabbles than the issues in which the public is interested.

Council interrogation seems to be impossible; they close ranks, shut up shop and deflect arguments with great skill. If the essence of a lie is the intent to deceive — they tell lies. It is a cycle of corruption which is very difficult to break because it is so enclosed and sadly seems to be endemic in many councils these days. If the council was a school inspected by Ofsted, it would be put in ‘Special Measures’ and it comprises the people that we vote in and who make decisions on our behalf and spend our money.

What was the Mayor doing in calling the police and utilising their time so frivolously for which (it transpires) there was no case to answer? The council only had to answer Mr Thirlwall’s question, even if it might have been uncomfortable for them. The public have a right to hold the council, its decisions and policies to account and if Mr Thirlwall’s question had been answered there would have been no problem.

In my own case I was later able to meet with Karl Battersby (strategic director) and his colleague Tom Finnegan Smith. We had several constructive meetings and discussed the issues logically and on the basis of available evidence and a satisfactory solution was reached. I make the distinction between the abhorrent behaviour of many (not all) elected members and that of paid council officers who, I believe, are doing a good job in difficult circumstances.

My problem was satisfactorily addressed — all it needed was a bit of grown up behaviour.

Paul Haynes, Maynard Road, Rotherham