On 4 Feb 2013 at 3:31pm Westgate resident wrote:
The Westgate car park and road looks like a third world thoroughfare. Mess and rubbish, blocked drainage and the state of the road is a disgrace. They still keep emptying their parking meters of cash so they can have new carpets and corporate binges. OK Lewes DC -how much was spent on your staff party on 5/11/12?. A guest told me that the wine flowed all evening.
The Lewes District Council is a massive disgrace. They should all be sacked at the next election.........they cant organise an effective recycling system.
Rubbish............
On 4 Feb 2013 at 3:41pm my town wrote:
if you look around lewes it looks dirty
On 4 Feb 2013 at 4:36pm Potential Loonie wrote:
"if you look around lewes it looks dirty "
You should visit Brighton if you think Lewes is dirty.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 6:51pm my town wrote:
brighton may be . But i pay my council tax to l.d c
On 4 Feb 2013 at 7:05pm Zebedee wrote:
The police are disorganised and lazy and the planning department criminally inept if not petty and corrupt.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 7:46pm Sussex Jim wrote:
The mess and rubbish in Westgate Street is caused by fly tippers. The Council can be voted out at the next local election.
As a council tax payer, how can I blag my way in to the next jolly? I enjoy the odd (free) glass of wine!
On 4 Feb 2013 at 9:19pm LDC Worker wrote:
The majority of LDC employees are hard working and conscientious and we don't like what is going on either. I'm a council tax payer and I want to see my money put to good use too, but please don't tar us all with the same brush.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 9:55pm Pedant wrote:
Now, let's see what the definition of 'hard-working' is...
On 4 Feb 2013 at 9:59pm LDC Worker wrote:
Try this for starters-working from 7.30 until 5, with no lunch break, taking work home in the evenings and at weekends, going into work when the offices are closed. I think that's quite hard working, don't you? Not me by the way, but I have been known to take work home.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 11:00pm Dave wrote:
If you're looking for the council which has parties and frequent booze, it's not LDC, it's Lewes Town Council. Check out the civic entertainment budget as a proportion of its overall budget.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 11:02pm Local wrote:
Not sure I believe there are too many Council staff doing that sort of shift - apart from incentivised parking wardens, that is.
On 4 Feb 2013 at 11:03pm the old mayor wrote:
Methinks the peasants are revolting. Banners at the ready !!
On 5 Feb 2013 at 12:44am Knees UP wrote:
Perhaps one the the Councillors who are now popping up on here with a welcome frequency could answer the one about the large entertainment budget?
On 5 Feb 2013 at 10:05am Realist wrote:
The councillors who "pop up" on this forum deserve our strongest congratulations. They regularly take a constructive stand on local issues and happily use their own names, unlike most of us correspondents! The councillors to rightly condemn are the great majority who, once elected, become invisible to the public, hiding well below the parapet. What has be come of the kind of high profile councillors we were led by ten or twenty years ago? Cllrs. Milner, Price and O' Keefe are three noble exceptions to the current anonymous crew.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 11:32am Vic wrote:
Further to the above, I think the linkes of Cllr Kingham and Kent also seem to raising many issues around Lewes too (especially over in Malling for a change). The newer and younger members of Local Councils in Lewes seem to be a little more enthusiastic about responding to local issues, where as the much older and retired members are rarely seen or heard.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 1:17pm Realist wrote:
It would seem that the higher profile councillors are often either independent or Green - not shackled to the local Liberal or Tory party line. Both parties are jointly responsible for our punitive parking scheme, and neither have a very good record on planning, so they have every reason to keep their heads down! Local politics should not be quite so political - a few more Independents would be very welcome on all three councils.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 1:23pm Vic wrote:
@Realist. Maybe that's something to think about with the County Council Elections in May then. Does anyone know whos standing in Lewes yet?
On 5 Feb 2013 at 3:44pm Ed Can Do wrote:
The problem is that for a long time, Lib Dem seats in Lewes and Tory seats outside the town at all the many levels of council we are burdened with here have been traditionally extremely safe. People vote politically without any consideration for who the candidate actually is or whether they've been any good in the past. Who in the Malling ward can honestly say they've ever met Rosalynd St Pierre? I'd wager most people wouldn't recognise her if she punched them in the face yet she waltzes into a seat on the council every time just by wearing a yellow campaign scarf. She's good at turning out to do a bit of weeding when the Libdems need some pictures for their latest propaganda mailout but surprisingly less forthcoming when challenged on issues that actually matter to people.
We have all these councillors and their various party biases and with the exception of the handful that post on here and Caitlin's column on the Viva website, nobody would ever hear what their personal opinion is on any matters. It's this lack of communication that makes people so suspicious of them. If you hear nothing about what's going on, the obvious assumption is that people are trying to hide things or are ashamed about the decisions they've made.
For example, imagine getting a straight answer or personal opinion from any councillor about their view on Councillor Page attempting to run the council single-handedly and basically ignoring democratic process. There's no chance, even from his political opponents. If I was sat on a council body that had got itself into the Rotton Boroughs section of Private Eye on more than one occasion, I would be really quick to get my views on it out in public and either explain what's going on if I were party to it or distance myself from the whole debacle if not.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 4:09pm Deelite wrote:
I've met Ros St Pierre many times and she's marvelous. A great campaigner.
Lewes DC is in Rotten Boroughs so often mainly because Toby, a Private Eye contributor lives in Lewes.
Android is best.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 4:12pm bastian wrote:
The money raked in by the parking scheme doesn't go to the council at all, it goes to the national parking people. LDC still ought to maintain their car parks but they don't.
The problem is not the people who work for LDC, they work hard enough, but the elected councillors who wield the real power..but listen only to money , not common sense, or the electorate.
On 5 Feb 2013 at 6:25pm Vic wrote:
Whilst we're talking councillors, should a Lewes District by-election be called, at the same time as the May County Elections, in Barcombe, now that Cllr Donna Edmunds has elected to leave the Tories and join UKIP?
On 7 Feb 2013 at 3:38pm not from around here wrote:
Yes Realist but I don't think we should give credit to Cllr Milner for spouting his views on here - he is not being accountable or brave, he's just too stupid arrogant and thick-skinned to realise that he makes himself look like a fool - the other councillors wisely avoid this forum.
On 7 Feb 2013 at 5:16pm Ed Can Do wrote:
I'm sure Ros St Pierre is nice enough as a person but she's about as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to representing her constituents. When ESCC were planning to extend the parking scheme for no reason at all across Malling I wrote to her asking for her support aginst the moves and she replied thatshe used to live there and it's a lovely place and she'd love to come down and see for herself what was going on and then that was it. No further replies to emails or letters and entireyl zero visible opposition to a scheme that nobody asked for a thankfully got shelved thanks in no small part to Matt Kent and Merlin and the work they put in to support the opposition to it.
Go ahead and ask her whether she was in favour of the extension of the parkign scheme to Malling and if so why, and if not what she did to prevent it. Just don't hold your breath waiting for a reply.