15/2/16
A hectic day. Firstly a radio interview on Radio WM where I was cut off by the presenter for stating what is established fact- and evidenced on this website concerning officers of Sandwell Council providing false information to both myself and members of the public, as well as misleading councillors in a biased plagiarised report.
In short if anyone really wants to bother doing any research on this issue, which is currently with the Local Government Ombudsman, then see the following links.
- The Pest Control company and Sandwell council officers lying about “relocating” the geese to the Sandwell Valley
- Culling only admitted after submitting a freedom of information request the following year.
- Sent staged photo’s of geese being released at Forge Mill Lake by the Senior Countryside Ranger
- recorded phone call conversations where officers lied about their involvement/knowledge of the culls.-
- Park Farm manager
- Conservation Officer
- Complaint about lies upheld by independent investigator
- part one
- part two
- Confirmation of this by the Head of Neighbourhoods in writing, though after our petition had been handed in and the joint “scrutiny” committee had passed a verdict of taking “No Action” on an investigation.
- A lie about no lies being told by Sandwell council to another person in an FOI request!
- Lies about number of complaints about geese being high
- More lies concerning what “policy” was in the recent questionnaire.
- Historic lies concerning egg pricking, and this being reported to the Cabinet Member, who on John Satchwell’s report decided to approve the culling after taking “advice” from the Cabinet- for all they knew on the subject, then went on radio claiming that egg pricking had been carried out.
- look at our report concerning the whole sorry council charade’s prejudiced attitude towards one species of bird.
But who can be bothered to look into any of that when talking about some twat footballer and his twitter and travel swipe cards?
A mini vox pop from the outside broadcast at Dartmouth Park revealed that the people there questioned about the geese didn’t have a problem with the birds themselves, but noted the excrement. Well if that is a “problem” then it is down to the council’s groundcare to sort it.
What wasn’t really clear from Maria Crompton’s recommendations following the results of the questionnaire is if the council had any plans to carry out any further culls? We still didn’t really get an unequivocal answer from her, though note that she still appears to believe that egg pricking was previously being carried out- deluded.
In the afternoon, the latest paper petition was handed into the council house, calling for non- lethal methods of management in parks and better groundcare to reduce conflicts between park users, before the Leisure Culture and The Third (turd) Sector Scrutiny committee meeting in Committee room one of The Oldbury Kremlin.
On entering the room, the small delegation of goose defenders were met by the sight of John Satchwell, Adrian Scarrott, Maria Crompton and her partner Cllr Allen (as observer) on one side and Cllr Zahoor Ahmed– chair of the committee on the other.
Some time after the meeting had been scheduled to start, Councillor Phillips appeared followed by a rather flustered Councillor Lloyd, and then bizarrely as though at some kind of casual pub dominoes meeting, a scruffy looking Councillor Tipper. Three others on the committee, didn’t show. One wonders after studying the council’s constitution documents that this meeting was even quorate before Tipper strolled in?
Completing the room ensemble were a manager from sport and leisure, a democratic services officer taking minutes, and a journalist from The Express and Star.
Item 4a- the geese was somehow promoted to first item and John Satchwell paraphrased his report to an excited room hanging on his every word. Some of the old rubbish streamed out but it was clear that he was on his best behaviour on this occasion, (collar felt?)
After some discussion, we butted into the meeting at the end to ask the direct question that was lacking from the mealy mouthed report and recommendations.
The following is a direct quote from Councillor Maria Crompton.
“Can I just ask a question, Are you going to cull any adult geese in the next ten years, yes or no?”
MARIA CROMPTON :”We have got no intentions of culling any Canada Geese, or any other kind of geese at this present time.”
Some question as to how long “this present time” means still remains, though it is quite evident that much of this rests with Sandwell Council itself and how it enacts its proposed recommendations. If they are just content with lecturing the public about feeding, and not changing their management habits of their parks and nature reserves, then do not hold your breath when we appear at the same place in time again with clandestine culling on the back of ill conceived officer reports.
LISTEN TO AN AUDIO RECORDING OF THE MEETING BELOW.