Orwell was right…

At first glance, the recent STC Operations Committee (OC) meeting lacked exciting developments. Yet, something happened in one of the agenda items that made me scribble in my notes: “check this out”. So- let’s check it out!

ALL RESIDENTS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
After the meeting, at home, I listened to the recording of what the councillors and the Town Clerk said. To be 100% sure that I was right – I rummaged through old articles to find the report from a meeting I referenced in the discussion at the recent meeting. The meeting I referred to in the debate took place in September 2021. Knowing the date of the meeting, I found its recording on my hard drive. I listened to this recording, found the relevant fragment, and finally confirmed my suspicions. Unfortunately, what caught my attention at the meeting, was quickly trivialized by the councillors Labour Party and Town Clerk. It turned out, however, that I was right again, and everyone in the room was wrong.

Once again, STC has shown an astonishing lack of consistency in action. This issue will be unimportant to 99.9% of residents, but it shows again that instead of using my enthusiasm and a new approach to work- Labour-led STC prefers to stick to old.same.ways.

So- fair warning: this time, I will write about something relevant to a handful of residents. However, I suspect that there are some people in the town who, after reading what has happened, will have serious reservations about how the STC has treated them. To put it briefly – in an almost identical situation, two residents were treated in a completely different way(hence- such an unusual paragraph title, which is a paraphrase of the quote from “Animal Farm” by G. Orwell ). Here’s what happened.

“DONKEYS LIVE A LONG TIME.”- BENJAMIN, DONKEY, ANIMAL FARM.
From time to time, at the meeting of the STC OC, there is a request from the resident who rents the allotment, asking for permission to keep some animals on his plot. Three animals appeared in the records of the last meeting of the STC OC- horses, hens and cockerels.

For a moment, there was a discussion about horses and ponies. The only thing I remember from it is that their owners get an extremely good price from the STC for renting the land compared to market prices. Nobody sees anything strange in that (except me, but at this point, I know that if the STC runs out of cash due to bad economic policies- it will raise taxes again so that the “poor” horse owner can continue to use the virtually free land). In relation to the horse/ponies issue, there was also a discussion about something that came up some time ago when STC allegedly started receiving complaints about donkeys making noise on another plot.

When one of the councillors used the term ‘donkey-people’ to describe donkey owners, I almost burst out laughing, as the image of a talking horse immediately appeared in my imagination. This has nothing to do with the article- it’s just a digression.

CHICKENS, HENS, ROOSTERS, DUCKS, HORSES, DONKEYS – “ANIMAL FARM” REFERENCE START TO SOUND EVEN MORE ACCURATE
With the issue of ‘donkey-people’ and ‘horse-people’ closed, it was time to discuss the issue of a resident wanting to keep hens at his allotment. I thought the matter would be straightforward. This type of application had already come up in STC deliberations; back then, it was rejected- I was sure of it.

To my surprise, the application was approved this time despite the fact that similar applications had previously been rejected. As I mentioned – my comment was ignored. In the recording below, the Town Clerk says that an application for keeping ‘ducks’ had previously been blocked, but I searched my blog posts when I got home and found one of the examples I mentioned.

Here is a recording of a discussion from 15 September 2021, where STC OC rejects an application for a permit to raise “chickens.”

Here is confirmation that the application was rejected (screenshot of minutes from 15.9.21 STC OC meeting)

Here is a recording from 13 July, at which STC OC allows hens to be kept at the allotment.

I attached the below link to the article describing this meeting. Interestingly, the issue seemed so trivial to me at the time that I did not devote even one sentence to it in the report. However, I left a few sentences about it in unpublished notes. I also remembered the discussion and kept the recordings- hence today, I can present this inconsistency on the part of the STC. https://shirebrook247.com/2021/09/20/operations-committee-15-9-2021/

WIGAN PIER, CHICKEN, HEN! IT RHYMES AND STILL STAYS IN THE ORBIT OF ORWELL’S PROSE…
So, what’s the difference? Why does STC approve the application in one instance and reject it in another? Honestly- I don’t understand that. STC policy, in that matter, is non-existent, and decisions are inconsistent and made up on the go. In my opinion, it should be once and for all decided. In my opinion, allotments should be strictly for growing fruit, vegetables and flowers- nothing else.

The only difference I can notice is the name of the animal- hens and chickens are not the same- even if SIR Kier Starmer is trying to force people into thinking that males can have a cervix. There is a big difference between male and female birds (and humans). Anyway- it doesn’t matter if you keep birds to have eggs or just meat without eggs- keeping animals will affect neighbouring plots of land AND will attract predators, vermin and potentially decease (remember bird flu?).

SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN?
For me, every STC meeting is like a lesson. Preparing blog entries is like homework. Although Chamber is like a school class, there is no teacher in it. If you want to learn anything in this class, you must do it yourself. You must diligently take notes, listen carefully to what is being discussed, and remember important information. Only in this way can you improve and, in my case, act as an opposition that points out mistakes and proposes alternative solutions. Today I did it – I pointed out the inconsistency of action of the STC. I proposed a solution to the problem: adopting a policy strictly defining the prohibition of keeping animals on allotments. Class dismissed!

To be promoted to the next grade, I must pass the final exam in the next elections in May 2023. The exam result will not be decided by the teacher but rather by the “parents” – voters. If I fail this exam, there will be no “do-over”. If I fail, I will be kicked out of this “school”, and all my experiences and knowledge will be wasted. My real school days were decades ago, but I remember that after returning from school, one of my parents sometimes asked me what new I had learned today.

So what did I learn from the last ‘lesson’? Well- I learned two lessons from this meeting. The first is that even experienced councillors sometimes forget what they were doing just a few months ago, and I should not take their assertions uncritically. Creating strict policies about repeating issues could help overcome that problem. 

The second lesson is more of a lesson for residents-when you apply to raise “birds” on an allotment, it cannot be ducks or chickens. You have to use the word ‘hen’ to get permission. Weird, right?

I will conclude with a quote from George Orwell, which willy-nilly became the leitmotif of this article: Journalism is printing what someone else does not want to be printed. This quote will be the motto of the next article at S247.

Below is the agenda for the STC Operations Committee meeting of 13.7.21

O/22/007 TO RECEIVE APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TO APPROVE THE REASONS FOR THOSE ABSENCES.

All members of OC were present.

O/22/008 TO RECEIVE DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST.
None.

O/22/009 TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN COUNCIL HAVING BEEN HELD 16TH MARCH 2022.
Approved.

O/22/010 TO RECEIVE UPDATE ON MATTERS PREVIOUSLY RAISED BY THE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN.

O/22/011 TO CONSIDER RESPONSES AS NECESSARY TO LISTED CORRESPONDENCE;
a. MR & MRS E & L NUSSEY – REQUEST TO BUILD FIELD SHELTER FOR PONIES ON
SOOKHLOME ROAD ALLOTMENTS.
b. CRAIG SHARP – REQUEST TO SITE A SHED ON SOOKHOLME ROAD ALLOTMENTS.
c. JASON HUPHRIES – REQUEST TO KEEP SIX HENS AT PARK AVENUE ALLOTMENTS.
d. MARLENA BOCHYNEK – REQUEST TO SITE A SHED PARK AVENUE ALLOTMENTS.
e. DALE PASHLEY – REQUEST FOR LONGER OPENING TIMES FOR PUBLIC TOILETS.
f. JOAN MADELEY – REQUEST FOR BENCH AT SHIREBROOK CEMETERY.
g. DANIEL LIGUZ – REQUEST FOR THREE TREES TO PLANTED ON ALLOTMENT PLOT.

O/22/012 TO APPROVE THE DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING OF THE OPERATIONS COMMITTEE.

Sept 14

END

Sylwester Zwierzynski