Some residents will remember when the borough council’s Newsletter was called the Waverley Wave. Which then morphed into ‘Your Waverley.’
There is more than a little angst among ‘Your Waverley’s’ opposition that since the takeover of the new administration – they can’t get prompt answers to their questions.
Bit rich when you consider that residents’ questions seldom received answers promptly when the other lot had a firm grip on the reins. And, of course, the Tories didn’t even have to answer to an opposition. – At least, not a credible opposition to speak of – just a couple of Independents a Lib Dem (half-way through its last term) and a couple of Farnham Residents’ who were mostly trodden underfoot.
The new Council Leader John Ward (Farnham Residents’) has come in for a drubbing. The tories claim he doesn’t answer e-mails.
As he is now off on his second Winter cruise – will he be using his free time on the ocean waves – to bring a halt to the criticism Waverley Web wonders? Or will he be playing deck quoits?
Yes I watched the webcast of a couple of puffed-up Tories throwing their toys out of the pram about John Ward not replying to their emails. But there was no mention of any emails from Residents not receiving a reply.
It was at the same council meeting that a certain Councillor received not a single member’s support on his long running EIA campaign.
I suspect there are some sour grapes being passed around here. How dare John Ward take holidays at the time of year when Council business is at it’s quietest.
For that that long running EIA issue will one day proved to be correct.
With regard to the Council’s Newsletter: “Your Waverley” lets hope under the new administration that it stops being blatant propaganda saying how wonderful they all are, into something more useful for the residents. Especially residents that may not have access to the internet. If there’s nothing useful to talk about, then don’t publish the damn thing. Wait until there is.
We can all live in hopes that we, the council taxpayers, will not receive another puff sheet for the council.
We say – save the money and read the Waverley ‘Web?
Must disagree with JWS on this occasion, as yesterday the budget papers were published and there are a lot of issues that need addressing in particular the lack of investment initiatives! What has the Waverley Executive been doing over the last 8 months apart from pontificating?
Perhaps the lack of investment initiatives is driven by the fact that the new administration is trying to sort out and uncover past investment initiatives? Initiatives that are showing they are not quite what it said on the tin?
Agreed.
When the new administration to over, much of their initial energy seems to have been spent trying to establish a clear understanding of the Council’s existing finances and investments (much of which was far from clear) This has been undertaken under the background of further reductions in Government financial support over the short and long term.
So I would not mistake prudence for pontification. It’s always best to check what’s in the kitty before buying a round!
Hi everyone – just wanted to add that a great deal of energy has had to be spent on getting a firm understanding of what’s gone on before, especially in the investment space. The reason for that is also quite clear – we all (all parties on the exec) had prior concerns about some of the strategic projects and of those especially Brightwells. This had to be looked at because the forecast contribution to the budget was and is material and we needed to ensure where that project really stood (and one major output being the revised medium term financial plan).
As to your Waverley – that’s exactly the tack the Comms team and I take. We will not be putting it out just for the sake of it and I also want the thing to be more informative and cost neutral as far as possible (in line with the Comms and Engagement strategy that was passed recently – and where essentially we added ‘engagement’ as a concept)
As to lack of investment initiatives btw I would add two further thoughts. The economy is not super-boyant at the moment and has a great deal of current and looming uncertainty (for a number of reasons) and secondly lots of these projects come about only if we borrow. The government have increased the base rate of the public works loan board rate by 1% and so some of these projects (that would have already been marginal/risky) become untenable.