Meeting farce

SIR - Recently we attended a farce. Unfortunately it did not take place on the stage of the Gordon Craig theatre, but in a committee room at Stevenage Borough Council. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the safety (not aesthetic, moral or any other) aspects of a proposed development.

When at the beginning of his presentation, the planning officer put up an incorrect slide on the screen we attempted to point this out, but were shot down in flames by a pugnacious chairperson.

The same treatment was meted out when we tried to correct other inaccuracies and eventually the chairperson threatened to remove four out of the fourteen councillors on the planning committee who actually bothered to turn up at the meeting and hold the session behind closed doors. Not only was this out of order, but illustrates the utter contempt in which residents of Stevenage are held.

Two points arise from this:

1, councillors need to remember why they were voted in in the first place and 2, who put them there. For, as it stands at the moment, the almost a quarter of a million pounds a year to pay for the so-called services of the councillors represents a scandalous waste of money, money which could be put to far better use in addressing the issues of the town, issues to which, at present, the councillors are contributing, not alleviating.

We are, of course, going to take this matter further.

A DISGUSTED RATEPAYER

OF STEVENAGE