A Story Today That Just About Sum Up Local Councils In The UK,

at first I thought it must be April 1st, but that is tomorrow, somebody dumped a mattress on a embankment in Bolton, the local council were informed so they could remove it, then the farce began! a trainee executive support officer at the Town Hall's "performance and improvement team" attended the scene and carried out a risk assessment to check whether moving it might harm the health and back of employees, then in a debate that lasted over 3 hours assessing the risk, the council filed a report stating that it would take a week to implement the scheme, why a week for such a simple task? the council would have to send in a 1.7 ton JCB digger to move it! talk about a sledge hammer to crack a peanut! what a waste of Bolton rate payers money, but two knights in shinning armour were at hand, Councillor Sean Hornby and a businessman on his ward got fed up and the two men ended up loading it into a van in just four minutes, Sean, of Bolton Council, said: "This is Health and Safety gone mad, I'm not saying it was an easy job to move the mattress but it only took us four minutes to move it, the policies are barmy - it's penpushers gone mad, there's too much red tape in council cases, people need to be able to get in and get the job done, all these organisations now are being run by - you've got directors, associate directors, chief executives, they've all got PAs, line managers, and then you get a few operatives who are out there doing the job the best they can', I just hope the people of Bolton remember this the next time a chance to vote comes round!