Reply to comments Play Park.

Reply to comments, Play Park.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

Me

Firstly I would like to say, no comments have been removed from this blog, the comment referred to if you would like to read it, was removed by the author, I was the author and it actually read that a comment reply was on the main page. I then realised I hadn’t posted the reply so removed the comment.

All comments received by this blog will be published whether they agree or disagree with our view. You must realise that I have many other things to do so do not spend my entire life glued to this blog so if there has been any delay in moderating and publishing comments I apologise but can assure you all comments will be published with only one exception, abusive comments will not. To-date all comments have been published.

Lena A resident of Preston.

Lena’s first line mentions another blog who are selective in their publication of comments, they don’t like to publish anything controversial and I believe the list you refer to only lists Preston councillors for the North Ward. We have already reproduced that here in a previous posting, we listed our recent post as a reply to a comment requesting a list of all councillors.

We have never suggested this particular councillor somehow cheated the system, what we wrote were facts as far as I’m aware we did not try to interpret them. I have already dealt with this point in answer to ‘A resident’ (6^th February). You are quite right in so far as I do not give my name in postings though I am not quite anonymous, I’m sure all councillors know my identity as I’m sure you do.

You have put your comment on as ‘Lena A Preston resident’ apart from your friends or family or possibly parish council most people won’t know who you are. In which case you are more anonymous to me than I am to you. I am only anonymous to people outside our area so for you to suggest being anonymous is cowardly is unjust on your part and the use of the word is uncalled for, but we have still published it!

I entirely agree with you when you say ‘Perhaps if people collated the information they required containing ALL the facts first, they would not feel the need to be so Rude’. That sound a little like a consultation to me and as you will see from my recent reply to ‘A resident” I am fully in favour of that and would appreciate it if you could forward all the facts to me, there is an email address on the main page.

You make a point in stating that ‘at some point the people of Preston voted in favour of it’, I seem to have completely missed that vote because I was completely unaware of it, if you would be good enough to email all the details of that consultation and vote confirming the majority voted for it then I too will support you in your efforts.

I believe you could be right in saying that 19 people stood for election in 2011 but it was for 13 seats on the council not 10. I would like to respectfully differ with your assertion that I voted for all 10 (13?) candidates, there were a number that I voted for that didn’t make it onto the council, unfortunately, but I certainly didn’t vote for them all. If you are suggesting that all councillors were voted into office by residents of Preston I would not agree with that, 3 councillors were voted on by councillors alone. If you are suggesting that when any councillor who is elected or co-opted onto the council we no longer have any right to question their decisions or actions and they should be left to do as they please I would feel compelled to disagree with you.

Your last paragraph reads ‘I am not saying that everything is perfect, nothing ever is but i think people should look into things and talk to people in person before writing on a blog to insult somebody/people who obviously work very hard regardless of their own lives. Its nice to be nice.’

Again I agree with you entirely everything never is perfect but it would be nice if it was, we have never set out to insult anyone so if that has been occasioned we apologise but if we have simply misinterpreted something please talk to us and explain why.

You will see from the postings on this blog that I request information from the council on a reasonably regular basis and on a number of subjects, those requests for information are almost never responded to. I contact the council the way I do because the council have a active resolution that forbids councillors from talking to me I am therefore unable to talk directly to councillors so again, if you would like to email all your facts I would love to see them.

I’m sure your friend works very hard for the community and I admire that, I feel I also work hard for the community because I would like the council to be honest, open and transparent, neither is wrong.

If we are talking about the same person I am also aware that she has spent time and energy improving the Sports Pavilion and that certainly has my approval and thanks for a job well done.

Anonymous (7^th February)

I can assure you there is no intention of any personal attack on any councillor we are questioning the wisdom of a councillor’s actions given our past experience, nor have we suggested the councillor in question is doing anything wrong (presumably we’re talking about the same person).

We have our grand kids stay with us quite often (for a week or more) and I’m sure you will agree they are total bundles of energy, at least we have trouble keeping up with them. We’re fortunate in so far as being able to have them securely gated in and can let them play to their hearts content without the fear of them wondering off but that excess energy (to us that is) has to be burnt off and we often take the kids to a play park, often Burton Pidsea where there is a good play area and space for them to run and get rid of that energy. When we finally get them to bed, boy do they sleep, the fresh air helps as well!

It would be far more convenient for us to walk them down to Preston Playing Fields and let them get rid of all their energy there, less expensive too because we wouldn’t have to transport 5 of them around the country.

Our concern is a price tag of £144,000 and the burden on ratepayers should that materialise. We have already published a posting on the subject and one above, we are asking if a wider consultation is needed, without your people giving us that information we are not able to comment on that but I will say the same to you as I have said earlier. We are not against a play park, we personally would support one given the right circumstances but if there is to be a financial cost to ratepayers we think they should be asked for their view

If as the previous commenter stated, the people of Preston voted for it please send us that information and if it’s right we’ll support it too.

Me (7^th February)

Firstly I would like to repeat all comments are published, none are deleted.

This comment is anonymous apart from ‘Me’ but I suspect there may be a connection to the council here, forgive me if I’m wrong.

My personal dealings and experience with the council can only generate negative comments, one of the main reasons why we would like the council to be more open, transparent and honest, these are three things the council can’t be accused of and these are the three aspects we would like to change, if that changes, Preston will be vastly improved and a case for a Play Park would have been made very much easier. The reasons for the negative comments I would have thought are self evident from the postings but if you consider them to be wrong or unjust please comment and say why.

You say that you support the drive for a Play Park and ask what I am doing to help, the answer quite frankly is……nothing! But then I don’t recall anyone asking for my help so how would you expect me to help. In fact I didn’t know of the efforts to install a play park until I received your leaflet (having now found it I think it may have been in September 2012). I will say the same to you as I have said to some other recent comments on this subject. We are not against a play park, if it has good support we will support it too, we will also use it quite happily if we know its safe for our grandkids.

Would you like to supply us with your relevant information and then we will be able to make that decision.

In your last sentence you say ‘I hope this comment does not get deleted like a lot of the others made by residents’. After accusing us of unjustly commenting on the play park (which we have never criticised) you immediately accuse us for doing something that we do not do. If you would like to have a reasonable conversation on the subject of the Play Park our door is always open.

We actually get more emails than comments and I’m sure you would be surprised at how many of those are supportive of our efforts.

I hope this has answered your comments and thank you for reading our blog.