Friday, March 23, 2007

Council meeting Monday 26th

There's a Council meeting at the Town Hall on Monday 26th March, with public participation time at 7.15 pm.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would be nice to know what was to be discussed before we gave up good drinking time to attend.

The Postman said...

1/ Public participation: you can raise anything at all you want..

2/ Agenda (hopefully one day these will be available in advance on the council's website! [I keep asking]):
- to approve the minutes of various meetings
- Chairman's announcements (if any)
- Tourism report
- Operations report (no doubt to hear the latest vandalism reports)
- Moorings in Swanage Bay (admin arrangements)
- Swanage Footbal Club (lease/licence proposal)
- Meteorological records for February
- to authorise payment of accounts
- items of information for forthcoming agendas

Anonymous said...

anything of interest?

Anonymous said...

you had to be there

The Postman said...

Public participation:

Football Club members in great numbers seeking support to get a proper lease and for contribution towards refurbishment -- which the Council agreed to give.

Camper van owners asking for the business about parking to be sorted out. A meeting to be held soon between all interested parties.

What else?
Tourism report -- success of the Blues festival weekend (visitors at TIC up to 500 vs usual 150)

Moorings in Swanage Bay: agreement to discuss with all interested parties to resolve control of buoys.

Play in Swanage: request for Council to support plan for new equipment — given.

Council website: I raised the inadequacy of this yet again, propsosing that if the council can't manage it (owing to lack of resources) we could use a blog to post minutes or see if PDC can help . Mayor agreed to make this a priority item for an early meeting.

Panorama Road dump: I reported that following discussions with DCC, they have agreed to reinstate the re-use facility there.

Norden park & ride: Cherry Bartlett reported a problem there, and asked if the council could sort out with PDC.

Postman2 said...

PDC website is also pretty dire:
The site itself is slowly updated and hard to use with important information hidden in obscure places behind tiny links. Such basic things as links not changing colour when clicked to help in navigation are very basic flaws. If you are on a planning application page and wish to post a comment, the comment dialogue box opens ok, but you have to manually type in the application number. The necessity to uninstall QuickTime to view documents is crazy, as is the scanning in of electronic documents from paper (if you send them an e-mail they print it then scan it to post it to their web site!?) Maddest of all is that if you send them an e-mail you get an acknowledgement by first class post!

Anonymous said...

The inadequacy of the PDC website is pretty comprehensive. Having celebrated my 60th birthday I went to it to apply for a bus pass. I was gratified that you can download the form but rather surprised that having done so it is next to impossible to fill it in on screen. When I asked about this I was told the idea was that I print it out and fill it in by hand! It was claimed that providing an online form, like the rest of the world uses, would be too expensive. Strange that PDC finds the money to set up their site so you can send them money electronically but cant find it when it comes to delivering services. I have dabbled in making websites and know perfectly well that a simple form takes all of 10 minutes to set up so their staff are either ill-informed or careless with the truth. And by the way electronic signatures have been "legal tender" for 12 years now so that side of it is not a problem.

Why they did not go in with the rest of rural Dorset and the County and participate in www.Dorsetforyou.com I dont know. The same goes for the town council. People should not have to sift through three different sites to access local government services and information.

Anonymous said...

Surely the message is in your last paragraph.

They want us to know, everything is avalable online.

They just don't want us to find it.

Anonymous said...

On pdc's website at http://www.purbeck-dc.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=9927 is a report that: "A joint proposal by seven councils in Dorset has been submitted to the Government which, if accepted, will radically change the way local authorities deliver public services in the area."

Given the harsh choice between moving to a unitary authority or provide joined up delivery of services dorset has gone for the latter. I hope this does not lead to another thirty years of the left hand of local government not knwoing what the right hand is doing. Not that there is a left hand down here.

Postman2 said...

Well spotted, let's hope they at least get a single working website organised.

Chad said...

Good to see you giving coverage to Swanage Town & Herston Football Club on here! Well done!

Anyone interested in the Council and the Football Club should check out the following link:

http://www.swanagefc.co.uk/towncouncil&club.html


There you will find a synopsis of our angle plus the questions that we asked. As well as all the updates on the progress that is going to be made...

Have linked your site back to ours!

Kind regards,

Mark Chadderton

mark@swanagefc.co.uk

www.swanagefc.co.uk

Anonymous said...

can someone tell me honestly ,is this the worst council we have ever had!Idont remember a worse one what do you think,