Wiltshire Council leaders' pay rockets as a fortnight of fireworks distract us

FIREWORKS were ruined for me the day we adopted our first dog.

November 5 and  New Year’s Eve reduced him to a shivering, dribbling wreck, hiding under one of the dresses hanging in my wardrobe.

Thirty-four years later we’re onto our third border collie, and things are even worse.

The poor little fellow is so terrified of the random explosions that plague our parks for a fortnight either side of November 5 that I don’t really like to go out at night and leave him. Fellow pet-owners tell me they have the same problem.

The inability of our police force to actually police our public open spaces during the hours of darkness is disappointing.

And the fact that this yobfest occurs at the same time of year as a great deal of shooting on the estates surrounding the city compounds the problem.

The pops and bangs echoing across the hillsides some days make me reluctant to walk Glen off the lead in case he bolts for home.

Unfortunately we’re in for another dose of (officially sanctioned) pyrotechnics tonight, to mark the switching on of the Christmas lights.

This is a pity, since as an avid Strictly fan I’d rather like to watch Craig Revel Horwood - what a coup for the city council - perform the ceremony.

I hope it launches a super whizz-bang festive season for our traders.

And I hope the investment of their own hard-earned cash in the Business Improvement District (BID) project, starting in the spring, will help to counter the deterrent effect of our parking charges.

Actually, I can think of somewhere I’d like to set off a rocket or two tonight, and that’s up the backsides of the Wiltshire Council leaders who are responsible for those charges and who have just awarded themselves whacking great increases in their own allowances, weeks after voting to make 252 staff redundant.

This selfless devotion to the public interest even raised eyebrows on the Conservative Home website - hardly a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment.

Its blogger Harry Phibbs quoted the Taxpayers' Alliance as saying: "Wiltshire residents have every right to feel badly let down."

If you agree, you might like to know that there's a petition calling on the Trowbridge elite to resign at www.38degrees.org.uk.