Peter Kent-Baguley

Witness the EXECUTIVE in action; see democracy show-cased at the City Council. The ELECTED MAYOR, Mark Meredith sits with the COUNCIL MANAGER, Mike Robinson while various chief officers present their Reports for approval. The throng of 20 or so Councillors (the majority of the 60 City Councillors clearly don't wish to waste their time on charades!) may ask questions and make observations but the decision will go forward anyway!

Centrepiece of this morning's meeting was the 9-page Report: Proposed Community Centre & Mosque Regent Road, Hanley. 

To say that the report is inadequate is an understatement. It is littered with inconsistencies, lacks clarity and contains a number of gross factual inaccuracies. It not only raises a serious question about the ability of the officer to produce a truthful and clear record of the issue but many fundamental questions remain unanswered.

The Report asserts that: THERE IS NO REASON FOR THIS PROPOSAL TO BE DELAYED ANY LONGER.

Really? That should properly be the decision of elected Members. The Report is little more than a sham. It illustrates well the abysmal standards Mayor Mark Meredith finds acceptable.

So, without any sighting of the so-called multi-cultural charity or its multi-cultural trustees that are supposed to exist for the management of the so-called multicultural community centre, the Mayor happily approves the Report. Interestingly, no one disagreed with me when I stated that I didn't believe there ever would be a multi-culutral community centre built. Sham politics are clearly in fashion.