Secret consultation on closure of Elm Street
I noticed a poster at the junction of Elm St and Clarendon St a few days ago. As I needed a rest this morning I stopped to read it. Apparently ONLY the residents of the Kite area (and not all of them according to the note pinned below the poster) are being consulted on the closure of Elm St, as far as I can tell, at the Elm Tree pub, to motor vehicles. Allegedly access by cyclists and pedestrians will be unaffected (although if it's some kind of rubbish narrow everyone having to give way to everyone else design, some regular users might wish to take issue with this, and suggest improvements to the design).
There is no reference to this anywhere I can find online. If I wish to reply to this consultation (and as I'm not a resident, will my views be taken into account?), I will have to go back to the poster and copy down the email address on a bit of paper. Deadline is tomorrow.
However, as a DAILY user of Clarendon St, I feel my democratic rights are being are being totally undermined. It may well be that a very large number of residents are against this proposal. Looking at it, it looks as if, for the vast number of cyclists who cycle along Clarendon St, it will probably improve safety as there may be fewer motor vehicles trying to use the Elm St crossroads which is probably the dodgiest bit of this route. Therefore regular users of Clarendon St may well wish to support this proposal.
My question is: how can they have a consultation that's secret and only open to those who actually live in an area rather than all those actually affected? As far as I am concerned this is totally undemocratic to the extreme.
If anyone is passing the area in the next couple of hours and has the technology to take a photo of the posters and start a thread on here regarding it and posting the posters so we can look at them at our leisure, it might be helpful for those of us who might like to drop a quick email in support of this plan.