NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY

There is a by-election going on in West Dunbartonshire this week. Doubtless, the candidates will be telling the electorate how wonderful they are and that they are the best people to pick up the £25,000 a year or more for sitting on the basket case local council.

They must think we’re all daft.

Especially when their predecessors have sat on their comfortably cushioned backsides and presided over dear old Dumbarton and the beautiful Vale being turned into a desert of deprivation.

Of course their spin doctors have blamed me for “stirring it up” and making unmerited criticism of them.

That’s why they banned me from asking questions of them about the disastrous decisions they make, one after another.

They won’t even talk to me and have referred me to join the queue of people hanging on for hours on end sometimes to make their complaints by telephone.

Either that or they say I should place a Freedom of Information request with my questions which might take a month or longer to answer.

But we all know that the truth will out eventually. That their faults will finally be exposed.

Naively, the Council have set up their own on-line complaints column.

Now that’s very poor public relations strategy, especially if it’s your highly paid job to make your employers look good.

It’s a bit like a boxer inviting his opponent to punch him on the face three times before he retaliates by telling him he has stepped into the wrong ring.

And referring him elsewhere, usually to an outside organisation which has been appoiinted by the Council but for whose mistakes they refuse to take responsibility.

Take today, for example, when one WDC resident, Vicky MacLennan, complained: “Cardross Road absolute shambles, not a week goes by there isn’t roadworks and temporary traffic lights…

“It’s absolutely frustrating for people who live up this end or work…

“Surely the works just now don’t need the whole side of the street coned off.

School run take 3x as long both mornings and afternoons…”

This was the response from the Council to the frustrated mother of a young child that she has to get school on time in the morning:

Author

West Dunbartonshire Council

Hi Vicky MacLennan thanks for your message, these roadworks are the responsibility of SGN, you can find out more about these here;: https://www.roadworksscotland.org/. you can also complain about these here; 0800 912 1700 or customer@sgn.co.uk

ROADWORKSSCOTLAND.ORG

Scottish Road Works Online

In other words, the Council have told her not to contact them but to get in touch with another organisation where she might or might not, most probably not, get the answer she is looking for.

Another resident, Jim Fraser, agrees entirely. “Vicky MacLennan you ain’t seen nothing yet ! WDC give permission to rip this road up at the drop of a hat. There is currently work scheduled until May 2025 and who or what knows what will have developed by then. There is just no coordination between WDC and the contractors to minimise disruption. Plus fling into the mix every second day the traffic lights at Cardross Road/Renton Road fail. It’s one disruption after another.”

This is followed by an aside from Helen Jordan: “This must be the most dug up road in the shire”

Vicky MacLennan replies: “It absolutely is.”

And Lorraine Brolly seconds that immediately: “Helen Jordan and it’s the same bit all the time.”

Gill McCready says: “Vicky MacLennan I’ve just e mailed SGN (per info given by Amanda WDC), I’ve also cc Jackie Baillie into it. Might be wise if others did the same?”

And here’s the rub. Lorraine Brolly tells Vicky MacLennan: “25 mins it took me to get through to them yesterday

“

Gill McCready replies: “Lorraine Brolly me too. Can I advise writing an email to address provided? I’ve just done it.”

So, here we have it. In West Dunbartonshire we have people looking for advice giving advice.

And a Public Relations Department exposing the Council’s own weaknesses.

She e-mailed: “Pothole and Bonhill bridge gubbed AGAIN!!!!! I swear they fill it with coco pops!!!! How much money is the council gonna waste trying to temporarily fix it and it lasts a week if u are lucky! Just fix it properly? It’s not rocket science!!!! So much wasted money.”

West Dunbartonshire Council comes up with yet another lame excuse and get back to the business that residents are being conned out of the council tax for – the state of the bin collection services which, to use Vicky MacLennan’s word about Cardross Road for is “an absolute shambles”.

Gill McCready wrote: “I have to agree, it’s CONSTANT very frustrating and EVERYBODY is scunnered with it. Are they botching the jobs each and every time? And not being held accountable? Who would know? I was stuck on Cardross Rd last night for (27 mins to be precise) stuck at the Joint Hospital with nothing moving. It seemed to be OK Helensburgh bound. Don’t know why?

“

Final word on this, predictably about the bins. Ian Adams said: “Now that we are paying for brown bin collection, I was surprised to see our blue and brown bins being emptied into the same wagon on Monday in the Whitecrook area, feeling conned by my council

.”

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You would have to have a lot of time on your hands to come up with this sort of nonsense.

Especially when you have such a poor reputation for getting anything done that’s really meaningful and worthwhile.

But West Dunbartonshire Council, like Nero who fiddled while Rome burned, appears to have loads of time to waste on the most stupid of projects including this one, pictured right.

Since the Council’s own on-line complaints column clearly indicates that hundreds of residents are dissatisfied with the Council’s services and there is plenty to do for the workforce they have in Church Street and elsewhere one can only assume they have recruited from another planet the person who dreamed this one up.

Read this and weep: West Dunbartonshire residents are being encouraged to highlight employees who embody the Council’s ACHIEVE values.

Employees nominated will be put forward for an award as part of a recognition event being held next year.

The event will be based around the Council’s ACHIEVE Framework which outlines the behaviours expected of all employees at West Dunbartonshire Council.

The values are Ambition, Collaboration, Honesty, Innovation, Ethical, Valuing and Empowering.

Employees can be nominated in one of seven categories, including Trailblazer, Teamwork Excellence, Ethical, Innovative Solutions, Empowerment Champion and Community Appreciation.

Nominees who are shortlisted will be invited to afternoon Clydebank Town Hall with Chief Executive Peter Hessett.

Doubtless, the second prize will be two afternoons in Clydebank Town Hall where tins of Brasso will be made available for all those with the brass neck to turn up.

Peter Hessett, Chief Executive of West Dunbartonshire Council, said: “Our employees provide a fantastic service every day, making a positive impact on the lives of our residents and it is only right that they are recognised for their efforts.

[From where I am sitting the management team and the councillors who sign off their work and ideas are overpaid for what they do. Can you believe that Mr Hessett has a package valued at around £150,000 a year and the Provost and Council leader are paid £1,000 a week, even when there are no meetings to attend.]

“I would urge residents who have been impressed with the service they have had to nominate those individuals, not only for recognition but a lasting reminder of the excellent work and care they have provided.”

I would take it that none of the residents who have much to complain about the Council’s services – that includes the hundreds currently complaining about bin collections and pot holes and education and social care and damp housing and anti-social behaviour and public transport gritting icy pavements and a general all round lack of amenities, need I go? – won’t be participating in this piece of very expensive piece of nonsense.

And that residents won’t be sitting down at their laptops any time soon to make a nomination at www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/achieveawards by filling in the online form.

I see we are to have an Empowerment Champion. Who will it be? Maybe it will be the person who came up with the idea for the Atlas boulders in Station Road or the Scrooge who said that Christmas lights were out this year

Nominations close 26th January 2025. That’s about two months away which is just about the time that would have had to have been allocated to the person or “the team” who came up with this idea.

Parkinson’s law says work expands to meet the time allocated to it. West Dunbartonshire Council doesn’t really have a team and if it did have it would be at the bottom of it and just like that other team of incompetents is the directors’ box at the Rock Stadium heading for receivership.

Top of page picture: This is Cardross Road which is too often choked with traffic and benightedly left with temporary traffic lights and that’s even before the new housing estates at Clerkhill and Monument Park are completed and occupied by hundreds more car owners.