The BBC reports that Council Chief Executive, Mark James has received a fine for parking on double yellow lines just yards from a council run public car park.
and in other news.....
Part two of Carmarthenshire council's AGM has been put back a week from the 25th May until the 1st June. With a two week adjournment, the next leg will determine who will strike lucky and get the various chairs and executive board posts. There doesn't seem to be an explanation for the delay so I assume that there are problems and I suspect it is the 'Independent Group' who have yet to be satisfied with what's on offer.
By the time the next ordinary meeting of the council meets, on June 13th, it will have been over three months since the last one held at the beginning of March. Agreed there has been an election, and time must be allowed for training of new councillors in the art of Carmarthenshire democracy but the consequence for the residents of carmarthenshire is that we are fed more spin than usual (if that's possible).
The council website has informed us that Costa coffee may be opening a shop in the new Llanelli Eastgate development and the Llanelli Star has a whole front page devoted to the 'long awatied for' report into how many millions the Parc Y Scarlet's stadium is pumping into Llanelli, £117m by 2015 apparently. The figures should be treated with extreme caution as this report was commissioned by the club and the council (I feel it was probably a brainwave of the latter) in a public relations move to deflect criticism over the council's financial commitment to the venture, given the club's recent audit report which questioned the future financial viability of the Scarlets;
"These conditions...[£2m in debt]...indicate the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern"
The article, oddly, says it was the club who commissioned the report, yet an earlier article states it was both the club and Carmarthenshire council. No one wants to see the club in difficulties and of course we wish the team success - but that is beside the point, it is the use of public money which is under question and how much more will be needed in the future, particularly as severe cuts to children's services etc begin to bite. This is not about a minority group 'harming the club or the council' as the Chief Executive of the Council states but genuine concern over a local government 'folly' - if you are in any doubt, Cneifiwr has recently analysed the figures for us.
The stadium was completed four years ago and has failed to bring in such promised wealth to Llanelli so far. It can be accessed fairly directly from the M4 and if visitors can negotiate the dreadful road layout and actually find somewhere to park they are unlikely to linger long after the event; if they do decide to do a bit of shopping before heading home they are not going to venture into Llanelli itself but shop in the various multi national retailers surrounding the stadium (courtesy again of the council management), those retailers will then conveniently take their money straight back over the Severn Bridge probably before the visitors get there themselves.
The report appears to be nothing more than an expensive PR project prompted by the Council to silence critics; the Club itself has plenty of support and doesn't need to justify it's existence.
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5 comments:
Mysterious and mysteriouser!
I half suspect that the consultants report on the Scarlets was not commissioned out of the blue but could be the first manoeuvre in a PR campaign to soften us up for a new wave of "investment"....we can't let the club go down, look at how much it's worth to the local economy.
As Carmarthenshire residents who have read consultants reports on supermarket planning applications will know, the figures are likely to be complete bollocks.
The delay on the adjourned meeting is because the Labour Group do not ratify thier cabinet and committee chair nominations until Monday next week.
The Indie Group met on Wednesday and made thier selections.
Pam Palmer is to become Deputy Leader with responsibility for Rural Affairs, Community Safety and Business Management.
Meryl Gravell gets Regeneration.
Jim Jones gets Environment.
Jane Tremlett gets Health and Social Care. Not sure how the Labour Councillors who fought an election on 'save the care homes' feel about putting the cheerleader of the 'close the care home' campaign into the cabinet.
The percieved wisdom from the Labour Group is that those getting jobs are Tegwen Devichand (Deputy Leader and Housing), Keith Davies (Education), Jeff Edmunds (Finance), Colin Evans (Technical Services).
time must be allowed for training of new councillors in the dark arts of Carmarthenshire democracy
:-), :-)
Incidentally, on the subject of parking, in 2009 the council were found by 'Which?' magazine to have parking fine targets, breaching Department of Transport guidelines, of course it was then denied and put down to 'administrative error' naturally!!
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Council-backtracks-figures/story-12445093-detail/story.html
http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/carmarthenshire-councils-parking.html
I would never expect a county councillor, town councillor or any council executives to pay for a parking ticket or anything else in this county. I was always under the impression that double yellow lines indicated where these county officials can park..they are after all very important people. Perhaps we will see another change in Carmarthen County Council's constitution relating to preferential parking. In fact, why not paint double yellow lines throughout all the towns in the county and we tax payers can go back to the horse and cart or god forbid walking.
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