No-one bothered to tell city council the money for People Friendly Streets was gone

 NOW it appears that the city council had no chance of getting Salisbury’s People Friendly Streets experiment reinstated.

Even if they’d all voted for it on Monday, it wouldn’t have happened.

Because Wiltshire Council had already announced the indefinite suspension of the People Friendly Streets package to ‘green up’ Salisbury, and the SWLEP, the fund-awarding body, had consequently taken its money elsewhere. After all, if it couldn’t be spent in Salisbury by March, there were bound to be others with ‘oven ready’ deals on offer. Deadlines work against genuine democratic decision-making? Sorry, them’s the rules!

If only someone had thought to tell the Guildhall Gang. I wonder why they didn’t and I do wish Wiltshire Council would be a bit more forthcoming with its version of events.

Given the number of city councillors who double up as members of Wiltshire, it’s surprising no-one appears to have known that they were wasting their time, along with blood, sweat and tears of all those members of the public who sent in letters and the 10 of us who laboriously and nervously prepared statements to read out to the assembled online throng.

Is it any wonder that the voting public becomes more disenchanted with the political class by the day?