Radio Sausage

A few ounces of reconstituted tree, shaped into a local freesheet, thump to the floor. The crisp metal edge of the letterbox snaps back into place, briefly trapping a small fleshy obstruction. The pain-numbed child continues its paper round.

This is what passes for effective communication in 21st century Kent.

But things are looking up: I read in that very freesheet that one of our elected representatives (Cllr Perkins) seems to have 'the vision thing' (article). He has proposed that Council meetings be recorded and broadcast on the internet, arguing this would encourage greater engagement in local politics - I approve. Anyone who actually gives a toss could listen live, or any time later that suits them. They wouldn't have to get themselves to whichever Council meeting place at whatever (more or less inconvenient) time of day.

Cllr Perkins accurately predicted that other Councillors would oppose the idea. Cllr Gilbey is quoted as saying  

"My personal view is that I wouldn't want to give the opportunity for grandstanding in front of cameras or recorders."

I may be warming to Cllr Gilbey's sense of humour: the idea that the mere presence of a microphone or webcam would transform Council into a casting session for Chicago! just makes me chuckle. On my one exposure to Council I observed:

• very little excessive or unnecessary expenditure of effort
• peer and group pressure to conform
• many conventions and procedures to curtail or restrict Councillor participation
• only about 5% egomania

This is not an ideal nursery for 'grandstanding' prima donnas. And they're limited to three minutes each, anyway.

The dark voices in my head tell me that some Councillors oppose this move towards greater transparency for bad reasons: embarrassed by what they say, or by how little they say; wanting to lay claim to non-existent protests and challenges; not wanting their words to be remembered too precisely; not wanting to be seen as a low-budget part-time imitation of Parliament at its braying worst; and so on.

The saying goes that law-making and sausage-making are not pleasant to witness. The proposed internet broadcast would be like listening to sausages being made (every one a sizzling banger, hopefully). It might set your teeth on edge. It might send you to sleep. It might play havoc with your blood pressure. But if it gets more people more involved, and makes more Councillors more responsive, it will be worth every penny.

If CCC 'doesn't have the money for this sort of thing' as Cllr Gilbey is reported as saying, I am more than happy to discuss digging into my own pocket to help make it happen. Any Councillors wanting to take me up on this kind offer can contact me via the Comments below.

Gale's View: Visitor Information Centre (part 2)

Those that have sought to present interim arrangements as Canterbury Council's solution to tourist information in Herne Bay are at best disingenuous and at worst downright dishonest. To photograph the leaflet stand in the Council offices and to try to present this as the replacement for the bandstand shop is idiotic as even the meanest of intelligences must be fully aware that the Council has proposed that the new facilities will be rolled out in time for the start of the tourist season at Easter and will be further enhanced thereafter.

Had the critics taken the trouble, as I have myself, to speak to the Leader of the Council, John Gilbey, or the portfolio holder, Mike Patterson, then they would know that staff training is well advanced, that work is under way to re-model the Council Offices, to enhance the signage and to issue contracts for proven technology to provide the promised touch-screen 24-hour information machines not only at the Council offices and at the bandstand but at an increasing number of locations around the Town.

They would also know that the mandatory tender period for interest in providing an attractive use for the now vacant bandstand has now closed and bids are being properly considered as legally they must. Others may feel that the transition might have been seamless but it is not possible to award a contract for an occupied building and like it or not the Council has to act within the provisions of regulation and the law.

With the merger of the Council's Economic Development and Tourism briefs there is every reason to believe that the Canterbury intends to devote more, not less, energy and resource into developing our coastal tourist offer. That will require increased investment and cannot be regarded as a "cost cutting exercise" even though the council's budget is, as a result of government policy, under very considerable pressure.

Tourism is still one of the UK’s largest industries and employers and, with the recession biting, it is likely that still more families and individuals will opt for domestic seaside holidays and short breaks in the coming year. It is vital that towns like Herne Bay are enabled to take advantage of this opportunity and I am confident that the new officer team working on this project have the skill and the ability to deliver a tourism offer that is designed to meet the requirements not of the last century but of the present one and the future. They need and deserve encouragement not carping criticism.

Roger Gale M.P. (January 21st 2009)

Gale's View: Visitor Information Centre

I have not, in the interests of those that I represent, always seen eye to eye with City Hall. This was true under a Liberal administration that asked the Town which swimming pool design it preferred and then went ahead and built the least favourite one, that sought to claim credit for a seafront paid for by a Conservative government through sea-defence funding and that made a pre-election promise to re-build the pier and failed to deliver. It is equally true of an administration that wants to construct a sports hall at the back of the town with inadequate access and parking, that seeks to re-build the Marlow Theatre, at a cost of £20 million plus, in the centre of an already overcrowded city and that rejected plans for a new hotel in Beltinge.

I have long felt that the City Fathers have taken a metro-centric "within the City Walls" view of the District at the expense of the majority of the population that live not in the City centre but on the coastal strip. That said, I regard with some disdain the bandwagon that has been set rolling in an endeavour to preserve the Tourist Information Centre in its present form.

Do not misunderstand me: I like the TIC, I admire its hardworking, friendly and diligent staff and I think that the display of goods, chattels and services on offer is both colourful and attractive. I do not, though, think that this outlet can or should be set in aspic and preserved and I think that a suggestion that we should re-locate the Council offices in what is, at the end of the day, a glorified conservatory is barmy even by woolly-headed Liberal Democrat standards. Populist the idea may be but practical it is not. (This proposal, remember, comes from Councillors who, when they had the chance, failed to seize the opportunity to roof the bandstand and turn it into a twelve month of the year facility!)

The present administration led by John Gilbey wants to raise the tourism offer in both Whitstable and Herne Bay and, in order to do so, seeks to take advantage of modern technology to improve the information services not only at the popular bandstand and pier locations but at other sites throughout the Town.

There is also no question of abandoning the face-to-face information service solely in favour of push-button service points. With vacant space available for re-vamping within the Council offices in the centre of the Town in William Street there is no reason why a far more comprehensive service offering, perhaps, the sale of rail, coach and bus tickets as well as accommodation and entertainment bookings and traditional information should not be introduced. Such a unit will have to be staffed and I see no reason why those who currently do an excellent job and who do not wish to be otherwise deployed should not continue to man a new TIC.

Neither is there any intention to allow the bandstand site to remain vacant or to see it occupied by a second rate tenant. It is a valuable location in which there is already much interest and I would hope and expect that in tandem with the upgrading of the tourist offer we shall see this space put to good use in the interests of both visitors and residents.

We have, do we not, a choice. We either allow Herne Bay to sink further into genteel decline or we look to innovative and exciting changes in retail, hotel, restaurant and entertainment facilities that are compatible with the demands of 21st century tourists from home and overseas and that simultaneously improve the quality of life and opportunity for those living in the Town. We can argue the toss over what shape new developments should take and we can agree to disagree, if necessary, over the route forward. We cannot, though, any longer allow ourselves the luxury of standing still and I personally applaud the endeavours of an administration that at last appears to have discovered the Canterbury coastline and wants to make things happen in Herne Bay.

Roger Gale M.P. (July 9th 2008)