Response to Anonymous.

Response to anonymous.

Hi Anonymous

You start your comment with “let see if this gets published?”  we can assure you that every comment to this Blog has been published without exception, there has only been one occasion when some swear words have had to be deleted before publishing a comment. It really makes no difference whether a comment agrees or disagrees with us, everyone is entitled to his or her view and we will continue to publish all comments, except very abusive ones though to date we haven’t had any of them.

We’re sorry to have shocked you by our statements but we have made them with a genuine desire to have them addressed and put behind us so we are able to go forward with a clean sheet with good honest councillors who’s interest is working for the people who elected them and improving our community in the future. If you have lived in Preston for almost 50 years I’m sure you can recall better times when councillors had the interests of their residents at heart and worked on their behalf.

We accept that things in the past may not have been done right and we are certainly not criticizing everything that wasn’t done right because we’re all human and we all make mistakes and misjudgments from time to time.

I would respectfully disagree with your comment that in the period we are referring to councillors did what they thought was best for the village and villagers at the time, that is not the case.

For a council to act in the way Preston Parish Council has acted in the last 15 years or so is unforgivable because they very clearly did not have resident’s best interest at heart, what was important to them was boosting their own ego’s and intentionally refusing to engage with residents which led to such chaos. In the 15 year period we’re concerned with the council achieved nothing for residents except the planting of a few bulbs, trees and laying a small area to grass. To achieve so little in that length of time at a cost to resident’s of about £20,000 per year shows one of two things, abject incompetence or an utter disregard for the wellbeing of residents. To add insult to injury, along the way they frittered away many thousands of pounds of resident’s money on follies only they could have thought up! Those same people are still wielding influence over the management of our parish, not quite what you would call “safe hands”. At no time have any of those councillors had the decency to say “ok we made a few mistakes but we have learned from them and those mistakes won’t happen in the future so we deserve a second chance to do things right”, that we could live with but the arrogance of refusing to even acknowledge any mistakes and to be told they know best so we should leave it all to them is mindboggling and unacceptable. The council prefers to crack a nut with a sledge hammer, that usually creates a mess and besides, bullying doesn't always work.

Your absolutely right to mention the improvement of the village hall the hanging baskets and Christmas trees, these improvements are terrific and an absolute credit to all those hardworking residents who achieved so much. Let us not forget the Parish Council obtained Planning Permission to demolish the village hall in January 2007 without any consultation with residents, let us also not forget it was residents who opposed the demolition of the hall. The council spent at least £10,000 on plans and planning permissions for the demolition and building of a new hall which would have placed Preston into debt for at least a couple of generations. If the council at that time had the best interests of residents at heard the refurbishment would have been done at least 5 years before it was and the money wasted on plans and planning permission could have been used to achieve it.

As for living in the past we can assure you that is not the case, we look forward to a future that sees Preston move ahead in leaps and bounds and that will be achieved by resident’s. We believe in order to move forward we must face up to the past and recognise what went so disastrously wrong and in doing so we can avoid falling into those same traps and move forward knowing those same mistakes will not be repeated.

That may give Preston a better future.