Hole In The Ground

Having just received a leaflet from my area's local (Labour) councillors, I was immediately reminded of that classic Bernard Cribbins song 'Hole in the Ground', as they are making a bit of a song-and-dance about (pot)-holes in the roads – again...

As usual, rather than tackling the issues directly (as I have long been doing, for example, including in this and other Labour-represented wards in Medway) they are more interested in making party political capital out of the issue and say that they have submitted 'several petitions'. I wonder how long that took?

Of course, it is done that way so that they get 'seen to be doing something', with the expectation of electoral reward as a consequence. Meanwhile, the roads remain unrepaired, unless a resident has reported them to the council using any of the several methods readily available.

For years now, I have been having issues such as these, broken kerbstones and other such 'street scene' matters fixed without fuss and without trying to draw attention to myself. Thus, over (say) the past five years, I have had a fair number of things fixed, usually promptly, mainly in Labour wards. That's not just here in Chatham Central, but also in Rochester East (with a couple of my recently-reported ones currently pending) and Twydall.

These have been, in the main, instances of obvious long-term neglect – and I checked Google aerial and street view imagery from years before to ascertain that they clearly hadn't been bothered with by the local councillors or others. I also checked whether they were simply in a queue and already programmed to be fixed: none of them ever was.

The real joy came after I had been doing this for a while, for with my record-keeping and 'before and after' photographs I was to demonstrate very clearly who had been active and interested, and who merely made a lot of noise. As the old saying puts it: empty vessels make the most noise.

Another saying that needs a little tweaking could now be written: If you want something talked about and politicised, ask a Labour person. If you want something *done*, ask a Conservative. With me, you don't usually even need to ask...