Monday, June 11, 2007

Hooray for Kent



How often have I written about the short comings of Kent, well you cannot imagine how repentant I now feel, having had the good fortune to receive my copy of "Around Kent" (KCC free newspaper for the people of Kent) just the thing after a hard days fund raising, for our profligate local & county authority.

I feel a deep sense of shame for ever being so mean to the likes of Paul Carter (Conservative Leader of Kent Council) or Peter Gilroy Chief Exec.

Seeing how good they are to our children, by giving them free travel, in three pilot schemes, correction how good they are to kids of the richer parts of Kent. Cost is one & half million a year for each pilot, since this is being trialled in three of the most prosperous towns, I assume this means, that it will cost in the region of four & half million this year. Maybe that explains why Kent is gong to increase the cost of carers for the county’s disabled.

This little publication is packed with useful info and publicity. It even has Kent council’s favourite weather girl Kaddy Lee Preston (Star of Kent’s big DVD production Towards 2010) (page three no-less).

Kent is also going into the cash card business with a little arrangement with Royal Bank of Scotland, apparently this is aimed at the elderly and disabled presumably because this is the group, who will be suffering an increased burden from Kent’s increased charges, for carers, so they will need all the help they can get.

Whilst all this self-congratulatory nonsense is expected from local authorities; I have a personal wish list, of things I think KCC could explain. What if anything have the many expensive visits by Kent officials to America achieved. Why we have seen £300000 spent on the promotion of tourism to the state of Virginia USA, and will see another a similar amount of money flushed away as money is being spent a hopelessly expensive and more than likely doomed tourist promotional event in Washington.

Other items in my wish list include how Kent, managed to loose eight million on the Turner Contemporary, why are road links are so poor in East Kent and how much was wasted on the publication in question, I could go on.

Still the unanswerable question is, how the blighters who run our lives get away with it all.

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