Democracy, it turns out, moves at roughly the pace of the actual traffic it’s meant to regulate

In the interest of civic duty, and mild curiosity about a genuinely dangerous junction near my flat, I attended a council meeting this week ostensibly about installing a single zebra crossing. Ninety minutes later, we had not voted, but we had covered bin collection schedules, a dispute about a tree, and, briefly, someone’s cat.

Local Democracy in Action, Slowly

The crossing itself seems, to my untrained eye, like a fairly uncontroversial request. People keep nearly getting hit by cars. A crossing would help. And yet the meeting produced no fewer than four separate sub-discussions, including a genuinely passionate exchange about whether the paint used should be “traditional white” or a “more visible reflective compound.”

One resident, who has apparently attended every council meeting for the past six years, told me afterward that this was “actually quite fast, for us,” which I found both reassuring and deeply concerning in roughly equal measure.

A Small Victory, Deferred

The crossing was not approved that night. It was, instead, “moved to committee,” a phrase I am reliably informed means absolutely nothing will happen for at least another quarter.

The London Prat‘s coverage of local council bureaucracy remains, sadly, an excellent guide to what I just personally sat through.

City A.M. has covered the wider funding pressures facing London borough councils, which perhaps explains some of the caution.

I will be attending the next meeting. Mostly out of spite. Partly because I would, genuinely, quite like to stop nearly being hit by a Ford Focus on my own street.

More from me: Lowri Griffiths, prat.uk. Further reading: MyLondon.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com