Wednesday, December 23, 2009

It's almost Christmas

Two pieces of unwelcome news today. First of all our MP, from whom most of us hear only rarely, has written to everyone in Eaglescliffe again telling them, amongst other things, that their councillors haven't consulted them about the school/Preston Park issue. Her local knowledge is so good that she sent those letters even to the very councillors she's complaining about. She carries on with the same fairytale that £20m is available to rebuild Egglescliffe School - if only. Maybe the bearded man in red is going to deliver it down the chimney tomorrow night! She writes of some of the conclusions of Stockton Council's engineers who have yet to report to Cabinet, but maybe she's got a mind reader in her employment. We will find out when the report to Cabinet is produced in the spring.
Her office is now closed for the Christmas Holiday, but for councillors there's no closing down. We will read e-mails less often and we won't always be around to answer the phone but we will check for messages of all kinds and we'll respond to any really urgent ones as soon as we possibly can.
Thoughts of emergencies bring me to the second piece of unwelcome news - the Council received a severe weather warning this afternoon, predicting road surface temperatures below -5 again and a possible 5cm fall of snow at around 1a.m. Needless to say the council's gritters have been out again in the late afternoon and will go out during the night also. The crews are the heroes of the hour and we hope that they'll get some time off over Christmas.
Meanwhile thanks to all who've signed the petition - hundreds of you from all over the borough and beyond. You have shown how much Preston Park is needed.

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