Consultation is ‘a two way street’

According to my Collins English Dictionary, consult (from which consultation is rooted) is clearly defined as “ask advice of, confer, consider, debate, deliberate, to pick someone’s brains.” It follows from this there should exist a “two way street” in such a meeting.

We in Harbury have just had the misfortune to endure such a meeting and it was clearly not of this ilk! Had the local Harbury Community Group not posted flyers in our houses on Sunday afternoon most of the local residents would not have been aware that such a meeting was set for the next day in the village hall. The Harbury Community Group had been asked not to attend. By dint of using their presence of mind, they did.

Such is the communication between WDC and SDC that neither have deemed it a good idea to work in tandem with each other on the same timetables, so leading to confusion. The replies to factual questions raised left me feeling very uneasy as to the transparency of all of the above proposals.

As you can tell from the above, this has no reflection whatsoever on how I hold the Gypsy and traveller community. It reflects wholly on the ineptitude of local councils who feel that they are merely ‘ticking boxes’ rather than having a greater duty of care to the local ratepayers.

Bryan Pratt, via email