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Midsomer Norton: long-overdue decision on car park should be hard-fought victory for people power Midsomer Norton residents’ patience has been tested to the limit after B&NES repeatedly botched a simple task.
Late in 2008, people living near B&NES-run South Road car park told me how boy racer-type anti-social behaviour, noise and nuisance into the early hours, was making their lives a misery. Their calls for action had fallen on deaf Council ears.
What was needed, residents said, was a lockable entry gate to close the car park at night.
So I put together a group of residents, police and others to get it sorted, and B&NES promised a remedy before 2009 was out. Then they broke the promise, and in fact only got round to ‘consulting’ local people about the gate days before Christmas.
They haven’t shared their survey findings with me but they can’t be very different to previous local consultations on the same issue. Some say the consultation was itself a Council stalling tactic.
A long overdue decision should come any day now. A hard-fought victory for people power – like our victory keeping Radstock’s Nat West open - should be just around the corner. But B&NES really have to get their fingers out, and just get on with it. Watch this space!
Written for the Somerset Guardian February 2010 |