Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council has released their draft vision for the towns, which will guide decisions and policy making for the next four years. (Ed – God help us). Councillors are due to think and talk about the new plan at the Town Council Meeting next Monday.
A SaD TC spokesperson said “After a full year of thinking and talking we have finally managed to produce something that we can all think and talk about for the next four years.
We’ve taken the Neighbourhood Flan What Former-Councillor Fencesitter Wrote in 2018 and merged it with some New Empty and Lacklustre Suggestions to create the Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council FlanNELS.”
Having read through FlanNELS SomersetClive can confirm that it contains an awful lot of words and not a lot of substance. In short, it’s a lot of flannel.
Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council will:
Celebrate our uniqueness.
Ah yes, celebrating our uniqueness in being in the bottom-three holiday destinations in the UK perhaps?
Maximise the potential of existing assets and resources.
Assets such as the White Elephant Enclosure perhaps. SaDTC has also produced ‘a statement of high level objectives for the WEE (SomersetClive 11th May). If that half page of A4 paper is a’ high level objective’ then SomersetClive dreads to think what a low level statement would look like.
Optimise the economic performance of our towns. Develop the cultural and economic well-being of our towns by resurrecting the Re-Imagine Dullbridge (RID) Plan and introducing the Task Force for Economic and Tourism Advantage (TaFFETA) in Smalltown.
Residents and businesses in Dullbridge breathed a collective sigh of relief when the deeply unpopular RID Bid failed to get funding, as it contained nothing of substance which would have improved the town, but instead included ideas which showed a distinct lack of imagination.
In Smalltown the first thing the new TaFFETA working group did was take time to think and talk about setting up a new working group – the Funding Taskforce to Inject Life into the Economy (FuTILE).
Having taken some time to think and talk about it the first thing the new FuTILE working group plan to do is set up a new working group – a Town Bored, with SaDTC councillors, Smalltown business owners and residents being asked to think and talk about ways to improve Smalltown.
Become a vibrant coastal destination.
SaDTC will have to overcome a lot of competition from an awful lot of existing vibrant coastal destinations if they want to achieve this. A tin of paint might help.
Create a greener and sustainable future for our towns by delivering our Climate Rescue Action Plan (CRAP) .
Although it runs to some 94 pages, CRAP contains no new ideas, but instead aims to teach residents of Smalltown and Dullbridge how to do things they are already doing, such as recycling or composting. CRAP schemes include telling residents to sit in the dark to save energy, prompting walking and cycling and encouraging ‘the use of our green spaces’. The only green spaces in town council ownership are the allotments and burial grounds. Smalltown and Dullbridge’s parks, public gardens and verges all fall under the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council responsibilities and SaDTC can’t even plant a tree without permission.
Develop an efficient, transparent council at the heart of our community, representing the needs of our residents and improving access to services
SaDTC has already failed to do this on a number of occasions, for example Dictator Dullard making a unilateral decision on the ‘Dangerous Tree’ without consulting the community, or Deputy Dictator Sherry now holding Top Secret Human Resources Committee Meetings – so secret that even the dates the meetings are held no longer get a mention anywhere. Incredibly transparent.
Create a sense of place: a place where people want to live and choose to spend their time. Enhance the well-being of our residents.
As well as the CRAP, SaDTC plan to enhance their website to include links to other websites which contain information to support residents who may be struggling with the Cost of Living Crisis. The sort of information which any resident who understands how an internet search engine works can find on their own much more quickly than trying to navigate the town council website.
SaD Town Council has confirmed that this action plan will guide policy over the first two years. It has already taken them a full year of thinking and talking to come up with the action plan in the first place, so expect an awful lot more thinking and talking before anything changes.
Residents are now invited to read through the plans and comment, however, the plans were only published on Wednesday 10th May and the meeting will be held on Monday 15th, giving a mere four days for residents to comment. In addition, comments can only be made by email to the Smalltown Administration Guru (SAG) or in person at the meeting. Residents wanting to speak at the meeting must first register to speak by sending an email to the SAG, however only a limited amount of time is given over to this section of the meeting, and permission can only be given to those who apply in triplicate before the cut-off date of 12 noon on Friday 12th (today).
Dictator Kelsey Dullard said “I am grateful to all the wonderful councillors for their work on updating the plan. As you would imagine, writing a Strategic Plan from scratch is very difficult, so instead I took the existing plan and having spent a year thinking and talking about it, I’ve added a few lines into that.
There may be some changes of emphasis and language because I’ve added in a few ‘buzz words’. I welcome comments from anyone, in particular those who have ideas for how we can execute our priorities, because I have no idea how I’m going to achieve any of this.”
Cllr. Banish Barracuda whispered a few words of his own, but it wasn’t anything of importance.