They’re still at it!

Here’s some more post COVID-19 new (ab)normal stupidity for you… On 27 July, we put up this post about Thurrock Council stencilling signs on pavements advising people to maintain physical distancing protocol plus directional arrows telling them which way to walk: What the actual f**k are Thurrock Council trying to achieve with this exercise? On 3 August, in the face of public ridicule, it appeared that Thurrock Council were going to back down from stencilling any more signs and arrows on the borough’s pavements and let what was there get washed away by the rain: Thurrock Council steps back from street signage scheme.

Well, it turns out that council operatives are still out and about around the borough stencilling more signs and directional arrows: Thurrock Council ignores its own directive to stop painting pavements – and refuses to respond when asked: Why? According to this report from Thurrock Nub News the signage works, which are funded through the Department for Transport’s Emergency Active Travel Fund and the Reopening High Streets Safely Fund, were initiated by council officers without authorisation from senior councillors. Thurrock Nub News have contacted a number of officers and councillors to ask why more signage was being stencilled on the pavements after having been informed verbally and in writing that this work had supposedly ceased. At the time of writing, Thurrock Nub News have yet to receive a reply.

Like us, Thurrock Nub News are asking questions about who actually makes the decisions at the council. Yet again, the answer appears to be that in a fair few cases, it’s the senior officers calling the shots with the elected councillors looking impotently on from the sidelines. Local democracy is a sham. It’s all very well electing a ward councillor but when they’re sidelined by an unelected, unaccountable full time officer making their own decisions, what’s the point of bothering?

We’re witnessing the further undermining of local democracy by unelected council officers doing the bidding of those who want to keep on Gaslighting us with the fear narrative. We covered who is pulling these strings in this piece here: Are we sleepwalking towards a 21st century form of totalitarianism? How much longer are people going to tolerate this before something starts to give? We’ve certainly had more than our fill of new (ab)normal gaslighting!