JustBeingCP

This morning (Wednesday the 24th of May) Herefordshire Council’s leader Jonathan Lester publicly announced his cabinet that will lead Herefordshire Council over the next 4 years or so.

He has decided to appoint 2 cabinet members covering Roads, Transport and Infrastructure which I see as a very interesting move.

There is only one cabinet member within the new administration at Herefordshire Council who isn’t a member a of Herefordshire Conservative party.

Cllr Barry Durkin has been appointed to the newly created cabinet position of Cabinet Member for Roads and Regulatory Services.

However the role of Cabinet Member for Transport and Infrastructure hasn’t been removed from the cabinet and has been given to Cllr Phillip Price.

As I have said in a previous blog Cllr Durkin failed me when I approached him in relation to the issue of our pavement network being safe back in 2018 when he last held the cabinet position of Cabinet Member for Transport and Regulatory Services.

As many of my readers and followers will know I wrote to the new Cabinet Member for Transport and Infrastructure at Herefordshire Council on Friday 19th of May 2023 to ask for a meeting with them to discuss the issue of roads and pavements.

I have been left wondering now that the new cabinet at Herefordshire Council has been appointed if we will be listened to by those that have the power to make key decisions on our behalf.

I do not believe that the promise I was given by the previous Cabinet Member for Transport and Infrastructure, Cllr John Harrington will be lived up to by the new post holders.

When considering the wider point of this blog I realised how many times our counties population of disabled residents have been failed by the administration at our county council.

I don’t understand to this day why it took councillors in Herefordshire a number of years to listen to the concerns that I was raising as a disabled resident of Herefordshire.

I have been considering quite carefully what joint message I would give to Cllr’s Durkin and Price as they take office within there respective roles.

My message to them both is a simple one and is this, please please please take time out of your busy schedules to meet with me so that we can discuss how the disabled community of Herefordshire can have an impact on your portfolio work over the next few years.

The disabled community of this county have been failed enough over the last 10 years or so it is now time to put all of the wrongs right.

This leads me nicely into a supplementary question which focuses on why funding hasn’t been ploughed into improving the state of Herefordshire’s pavement network in recent years.

I believe that this is because the previous administrations haven’t been interested in listening to the views of our community who live across the county.

This has shown us that they were prepared to discriminate against us because they didn’t believe that we had a powerful enough voice.

I recognise that the above statement might be hard for those reading this to digest but in my opinion it is a true statement.

As a disability rights campaigner and wheelchair user it is not like I want funds ploughed into our pavement network each year just every now and again.

I know that this is a quite a hard hitting blog but I needed to share answers to a couple of questions that have been on my mind in recent weeks and months with you, my loyal readers and followers.

I would like to as normal take this opportunity to thank all of my readers and followers for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read my latest blog.

Cam