KINGS NORTON WARD MEETING 16/09/09

Only one councillor present at the start!! Margaret Sutton.
Cllr Geoff sutton was 'indisposed' due to an accident, and Cllr Barbara Wood was late by about 30 minutes or so - (she only lives about 1/2 a mile away)!!

Only the meeting agenda's were freely available.
There was only one copy of the full agenda / notes / minutes etc, that had to be handed around person to person. This was quoted by Cllr Sutton as being the result of COST CUTTING!

The policing issues section had to be 'missed', as there was no one available to represent the police! The Inspector who should have attended this meeting was not available (for the second meeting in a row!) supposedly due to working a conflicting shift.

Russell Knight from the BCC housing dep't, explained a little further about the progress of the 3 estates regeneration programme, and then took a few questions from the floor. Most of which were given very 'general' answers indeed!
It seems that most of the questions the residents need answers to, are in fact all there, burried within the depths of the new BCC website, along with several downloadable pdf documents. It is a crying shame that residents are not kept informed as a matter of course, and that they have to seek out information for themselves.

The housing dep't have now initiated a new offensive on tennants who continually ignore the state of their gardens, and property in general. It seems that if any complaints are made regarding 'eyesore properties', the property concerned is visited and photographed, and the tennant then has to have a face to face meeting with a housing officer.
This is a good step forward - it's just a shame that it comes several years too late!!

The only other questions made from the floor were concerning such earth shattering matters as -
A vandalised bus shelter.
A streetlight that was not working.
A brook which needs cleaning out.

The meeting closed about 2010, despite only starting about 50 minutes earlier at 1920.