Author information: Joy Blizzard is a waste initiatives officer at Shropshire county council as well as a nationally elected representative of a leading local authority organisation promoting waste reduction in the UK – the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC). Through her work as communications officer at LARAC she has become a regular on radio and television, pushing the recycling message to the public.
I understand, by reading a snippet from a tabloid paper (in a quote worthy of being sent into Radio 4' News Quiz) that one of his opponents, a Miss England, I believe, will be standing on a ticket of an extra bank holiday, beauty treatments and more cash for mums because she explained, she is campaigning on issues that are really important to “ordinary people”. Given the choice I know who I'd rather vote for…
Whilst the serious minded politicos may snigger at such a manifesto, Miss England has probably tapped into some grass root issues which brings me back to CCTV cameras. Whilst there has been a hue and cry about local councils possibly using CCTV to crack down on “trivial” things such as dog fouling and litter, anyone who has ever worked in the street cleansing department will know that these issues are seen by ordinary people as anything but.
For the mum whose pram and / or toddler have got covered in dog poo on the way to the nursery or for the people whose front garden by a bus stop is continually being used as a litter bin for chip papers these are not trivial matters. Odd that the papers making such a fuss over councils' alleged powers to lock people up for 42 days whilst we rummage in their bins are usually the ones that call for tougher action on anti social behaviour – or have I missed something?
Had the dodgy statistician that came up with the 14 per person camera figure used my street instead of one in London, he would have come up with a figure of big fat zero. In which case we would be waking up to headlines of “Councils leave us to walk the streets of fear”. Battling the nonsense is such hard work that I feel the need for an extra bank holiday…
Register for free to comment