We Name and Shame the Guilty PartiesWhat price road safety? |
||||
|
||||
Sod the motorists - grab the cash!Our correspondent writes ... At the Bexley Planning Committee meeting on 5th March 2004 there were 21 applications by a company called Marketing Force Limited to erect advertising signs on roundabouts and flowerbeds within the borough. The idea is that one sign is erected to face motorists entering the roundabout from each approach road. The signs themselves are roughly 32" wide by 16" deep and will be mounted on two 1-metre high posts so that the top is about 2'-6" above the ground. The signs will contain the Borough's logo and the advertisement of the sponsor - company name, logo, corporate message or web address. The deal is that Marketing Force sells the advertising space to local businesses and the Council receives an undisclosed sum from Marketing Force - so undisclosed, in fact, that when non-cabinet council members asked how much the Council would receive they were told the sum was part of the confidential contract that was being drawn up between the council and the contractor. So much for democracy! The council officer who presented the case stated that the initiative had come from, and was approved by IDeA - the Improvement and Development Agency; a government department that advises councils. However, when I asked IDeA for information about their advice to Bexley Council, they could not find anyone who had spoken to the council on this matter and told me the scheme was NOT approved by them. Three of the four Conservative councillors present at the planning meeting objected strongly to the proposal on road safety grounds and another Conservative, Cllr Val Clark, attended the meeting specially to give an impassioned plea that the application be rejected on safety grounds. She also told members about another council committee that is currently investigating the possibility of removing some of the existing clutter on Bexley's roads. None of the councillors on the planning committee had even heard of its existence. Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing! Two members of the public were each allowed to speak for the statutory two minutes in objection and they did so quite vociferously. All in all, they put up a good case for rejecting the application. After all, every driver knows that, when entering a roundabout, one's eyes must be looking to the right watching for a safe gap. The last thing one needs is a distractive hoarding straight ahead that advertises the local second-hand car dealer, estate agent or funeral director. Later discussion revealed that the Borough's Road Safety Officer had not been consulted because his responsibility was "to instruct schoolchildren in road safety matters". Road safety matters were the responsibility of the Borough's Traffic Engineers - God forbid that our safety is entrusted to the very people who are already cocking up the Borough's roads! It also appears the police were never consulted - they just have to clear up the mess when the accidents happen. So, after all the discussions, it was time to vote. So you might expect that commonsense would surely prevail? Wrong! All the labour councillors and one of the conservatives, all with eyes glinting like one-armed bandits, voted in favour of most of the applications - roughly 7 votes to 3 each time. It was a perfect example of how easily money can corrupt certain people at the expense of all other considerations. So, if you lose a friend or relative in an accident at one of Bexley's roundabouts it could well be that the commercial distractions were the cause. In which case, these are the people you should blame:
EditorialAnother major question this issue poses is ... just how many confidential commercial deals do Bexley, and other councils, have? Oh yes, Marketing Force appear to have mugged several other councils around the country. And, if councils have considerable secret external revenue, why do they keep hiking the council tax rises well in excess of inflation? TR Nunn of Winsford comments: The Council may be found guilty of entrapment. As a result they could be guilty of 'corporate manslaughter' if anyone dies as a result of their foolish act (2005 Act). Their only defence would be to prove that they took the safety of road users into account when making their decision. A full audit trail would be necessary. It is quite clear they didn't seriously take the safety of road users into account when using their discretion to place adverts on the roundabout, therefore, the Council could end up being found guilty of corporate manslaughter with some of the top brass going to jail. Do the councillors fully understand that they are gambling with their own freedom as well as the lives of road users?
[Home] ● [Top of page] |
||||
|
|
|||
www.name-n-shame.co.uk
Copyright © 2002 Name and Shame
Last updated:
14 November 2008 |
||||
