If it weren’t bad enough that Moseley residents only had two weeks to give their views on the proposed CCTV scheme it now seems if you gave the wrong answer your views will be disregarded.
As you no doubt know, in addition to being able to make a response, to the consultation, online you could also get forms to complete in a number of businesses around Moseley.
One such business is the Prince of Wales pub. Keith Marsden, the licensee, spoke quite eloquently at the recent Forum meeting and expressed a view that not all businesses supported this wanton waste of tax payers money.
It now appears that Cllr Martin Mullaney has decided that all responses collected in the Prince of Wales should now be disregarded. Why has he reached this crazy conclusion? Because he claims that attempts to talk to people about the implication of the scheme have fixed the results.
Providing people with information so they can make an informed decision is apparently contrary to the spirit of this already corrupt consultation. It should be noted that it is not claimed that any false responses have been completed, no, just that information has been given to residents.
If the Ward chooses to disregard the views of residents on such spurious grounds then it will be a sorry day for all of us.
Sorry Daz, but you article is completely untrue.
The public consultation on whether the residents of Moseley wanted cctv or not, was an opportunity to find out what the general Moseley community thought on this issue. At the steering group meeting it was made clear that we wanted residents to make there own minds up and participate in this consultation freely.
Instead we have had the following:
1) one member of the anti-cctv lobby stuffing the consultation box in the Prince of Wales public house with a handful of filled in consultation forms. How these consultation forms were filled in, is up for speculation. It is only right and proper, that the consultation papers in this box are carefully examined for any attempt to skew the outcome of the consultation. They will not be ignore, shredded or chucked in the bin as the anti-cctv lobby are claiming.
2) one member of the anti-cctv lobby filming a member of the public without permission at a Moseley Forum public meeting who was expressing their concerns about walking around Moseley at night and therefore supporting cctv. The cameraman then put this film on YouTube and ridiculed them.
3) one member of the anti-cctv going round claiming that the installation of cctv in Moseley would result in numerous trees being cut down.
As a Councillor, I want to understand what the residents really think about cctv in Moseley Village. The anti-cctv lobby have made their views very loud and clear, but I now want to listen to what everyone else thinks and not have that view distorted by dishonest campaigning by the anti-cctv lobby.
It has already been pointed out to you that each form completed has got a distinct name and address on it. If there are doubts then the people holding the consultation can contact the individuals concerned. In fact they should have alredy done this.
I was at that meeting. We were asked if we minded being fillmed. Nobody said they did. The irony of people complaining about being filmed at a meeting where they are expressing an opionion that everyone should be filmed is great.
At that meeting I heard a member of the public say trees could be cut down. This is for the people implementing the scheme to deny. At the meeting nobody disputed this.
Characterising residents who oppose this scheme as a “lobby” does them an immense diservice. It also highlights the corruption of the consultation. It is bad enough that the consultation breaches every basic standard of consultation set by Birmingham City Council but to then label those who oppose in this way can only serve to negatively influence the result.
This whole process is a judicial review waiting to happen. Anyone who opens the City Council to such liability at this time is at the very least negligent.