It won’t go away (From York Press)

It won’t go away

10:16am Tuesday 24th July 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter

AS RECENTLY pointed out by my colleague Coun Doughty, the Labour administration recently flew in the face of open democracy by refusing to allow a debate on York’s most pressing problem – housing.

Instead they insisted on referring the Conservative motion aimed at alleviating this desperate situation to a committee “to look at” and then in all likelihood bury it.

Now the next two dates for this committee to meet have been cancelled. This simply goes to prove that Labour does not want to debate this issue and simply wants to keep it under wraps, avoiding discussion on their failure to address the housing problem.

There are 3,972 people on the waiting list and Labour’s affordable housing targets have ensured that not one affordable house has been built as a consequence of developers’ contributions in the last year.

So, with this in mind, why did Coun Merrett prevent discussion on the Conservative motion at full council, move the problem to a committee which he chairs and then cancel the meetings of this committee? The answer is simple – he and his sidekicks simply don’t care.

They have adopted an attitude of “if you ignore a problem it might go away”. Guess what – it won’t.

George Barton, Conservative councillor, Wheldrake ward.