Save Our Sandwell Canada Geese

The long running Ombudsman report saga recommended that I be paid £150 for the time and trouble I had been put to in uncovering the council officer’s lies. It was made quite clear to the Ombudsman that I rejected this and this was included in the report.

So imagine my surprise to receive a letter from the chief executive of Sandwell council Jan Britton and a cheque for £150 in the post. What a generous man!

Obviously the boss of SMBC has either not read this part of the report or maybe just wanted to put me to a bit more time and trouble in returning it to sender, which I duly have by hand delivery to Sandwell HQ.

 

Hopefully he may find time to read my six page letter over the festive season and reflect on the contents, and though it may not be gold, frankincense or myrrh, perhaps the good people of Sandwell ,(well some of them), are now better off to the tune of 150 nicker. (Should go towards another top officer failure pay off).

I had considered accepting his very kind offer or donating it to an animal welfare charity, but then that would be a total sell out and this is tax payer’s money after all as a result of the actions of  bent  Sandwell council officers for which he is ultimately responsible.  Having seen several animal rescue organisations who do not profit from the hard work they do, I would think less of them if they would even have accepted the purse of soiled silver given the circumstances from which it was accrued.

 

In August I reported on the fact that despite handing in a petition at the start of the year concerning the geese and the council’s future actions, that they had not responded to the points that I had been asked to put in writing by new interim Parks and countryside manager, (aka Satchwell’s mopper upper) Max Cookson. These were made at a meeting of The Cabinet petitions advisory committee meeting of May 18th.

When querying the fact that he had not responded, I was contacted by him asking me to meet with him to discuss the issues. I made it clear that from past experience that this would not be acceptable as only a recorded written response would be acceptable, based on the lies and misinformation of his predecessor. No written response= future deniability of ever making a statement. That has been the Sandwell way for too long, and it is not one that should continue.

It is difficult to understand that as the interim manager, he is not clued up on this issue having had several months to digest it, as well as what the situation is in parks re cleaning around the poolside edge.

I subsequently received notice that the petition would be considered “closed” given that we had previously submitted a different petition that had “addressed” these issues.

 

But they haven’t have they? The petition was about Sandwell’s ground care strategy and how this is crucial to managing the parks and also the council’s issues surrounding the birds.

If the council continue to fail to deal with ground care issues they could be the author of their own destiny as well as that of the geese in claiming that “non-lethal methods of controlling goose numbers were unsuccessful”. This also applies to egg pricking which we again have to take their word for,(or their contractors) is occurring. We already know they aren’t exactly the most truthful of characters. Do they potentially earn more for egg pricking, or more for the task of killing adult birds?

The minutes of the meeting were recorded below for the record and I attempted to make this point to the now chair of this committee Cllr Dave Hossell. I’m not sure however if the matter is fully understood by him, given he has just been pushed straight into a very big pool at the deep end. Skip to around the 26.15  mark on the link below.

vn850383

 

At the commencement of the meeting, the ombudsman report which has now been officially reported in the Express and Star article “At Last!  Truth on parks goose cull”, was mentioned by myself. It was clear that he had had no prior knowledge of this or the outcome which is relevant to the matter in hand. The Ombudsman report would have been received by Sandwell Council at the same time that I received it in late October, so I consider it a little strange that it has not as yet found its way to the cabinet member to whom the issue is most relevant!

There again, that is Sandwell council for you.

I did agree to meet with Max Cookson and Cllr Hossell, but only if the matter could be recorded for future reference. Sandwell do have a clear problem with recording matters such as this, so it is something which I believe to be necessary going forward.

 

 

 

And so the culmination of what has been a ridiculously long and drawn out process involving making a complaint against Sandwell Council’s clandestine Canada goose cull has drawn to a close.

Having gone through the council’s complaints procedure including their so called “independent investigator” , I submitted the complaint to The Local Government Ombudsman way back in September of 2015. It has taken this long for a decision to be made on arguments presented by myself and the council and the Ombudsman’s decision notice shortly to be  published on their website can be read BELOW.

16-10-19-final-decision

I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT RIGHT FROM THE START, THAT THOUGH THE OMBUDSMAN RECOMMENDED THAT I SHOULD BE PAID £150 BY THE COUNCIL, (WHICH THEY AGREED TO) FOR THE LIES TOLD BY THEIR OFFICERS AND THE TIME AND TROUBLE THAT I HAVE BEEN PUT TO IN MAKING THIS COMPLAINT-

I HAVE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THIS OR ANY PAYMENT.

I will go into greater discussion about this at the end of this blog post. This is a long post and I make no apology for this as it is the culmination, though not the end of three years of campaigning.

Before looking at the decision notice in detail, at this point it is important to explain what powers this body has and what it could and could not investigate in regard to my complaint.

Typically The Local Government Ombudsman deals with “injustice” towards individuals by way of finding “fault” with the organisation which caused it. They have limited powers to look at individual council employees, but instead can offer guidance towards the direction that the authority took if they made a wrong decision or did not follow their own rules. Many of the judgements of the LGO deal with social welfare, and one such example of an upheld complaint against Sandwell council can be read HERE. The key words of “Injustice” and “fault” have specific meanings for the Ombudsman- in effect their rules. SEE BELOW.

FACTSHEET – G2 How LGO investigates

It is therefore impossible for the Canada geese themselves to be considered in this complaint, as it can only relate to people who have suffered an “injustice”.

Page 1 of the decision notice deals with the powers of the Ombudsman.

In this decision notice, I am “Mr B” and John Satchwell, former Sandwell parks manager is “Officer Y”. Not named in this report, as they should have been, are other officers of Sandwell council who I will mention below. This has widely been published previously and so there is no need to pretend anonymity, and nor should there be any either. Points 5-20 offer a summary of my complaint, (on behalf of the geese). These have been covered extensively in detail on this website and are highlighted below for clarity.

Specifically

LIES TOLD BY SANDWELL COUNCIL OFFICERS. – John Satchwell (officer Y) former parks and countryside manager SMBC

Chris Moore– former Sandwell Park Farm Manager SMBC

Paul Smith– former Conservation officer SMBC

Matt Darby– Still current Senior countryside ranger SMBC who sent me staged pictures using his Sandwell.GOV email account suggesting geese had illegally been released and not culled.

The Ombudsman sets out the events of the case in paragraphs 6-20. I have marked the Ombudsman’s quotes in red italics and attached relevant links to some of these points to illustrate these.

What I found Law and policy

6. The Canada Goose is protected by law and it is an offence to capture, kill or injure the geese, or to damage or take their nests or eggs. (The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, as amended). It is also an offence to relocate Canada geese. However Natural England can licence councils to kill the geese in order to preserve public health or safety, or prevent the spread of disease, but only when non-lethal means are ineffective.

Agreed. Sandwell council specifically claim that they were relying on licence GL05, which was supplied in an FOI request, but this was for 2014. They have NEVER produced any licence for the 2013 cull.

7. Natural England has produced a best practice note for councils about how to manage problems caused by Canada Geese. It sets out means to control the population including treating the eggs so they do not hatch and culling. Natural England’s technical guidance suggests how councils should go about a cull.

What happened

8. Mr B uses a public park and has an interest in wildlife. In 1997, the Council considered how to manage Canada Geese at its parks. It had been pricking eggs so they do not hatch, but only in a limited area. The Council decided to extend this to all the sites and to continue over a number of years. The Council also decided to consider culling geese if treating the eggs did not control the population.

The egg pricking is of course the theory which the council claim to have undertaken which they cannot in fact prove with any evidence over a number of years. Sandwell council have not provided any direct evidence that “non-lethal methods were ineffective”.

9. In 2013, it reviewed the situation. Officer Y was responsible for managing the wildlife population and he discussed the possibility of another cull with officers before preparing a briefing note for the Council’s Cabinet Member with political responsibility for countryside management. Other cabinet members were also consulted.

10. The Council approved the culling as an ongoing measure until it could control the population by other means. Officer Y’s briefing paper says:

• The Canada Geese population across the Council’s parks is large with up to 700 birds at any one time and large flocks graze on public spaces.

• The geese droppings may be harmful if swallowed, and make grassed areas unattractive and paths slippery. They may also impact on fish stocks if passed into water.

• The Council has tried to reduce the population by pricking and oiling eggs and installing fencing around pools, but this has not worked.

• He recommended that the Council cull in two locations and monitor whether this has been effective and gauge public reaction. It should also continue to prick and oil eggs so they do not hatch and when possible seek to redesign the parks so as to make the habitat unsuitable for large numbers of geese to thrive.

We would of course and have disputed many of Satchwell’s statements as false or not evidenced. There is no formal record of the decision, which I believe suggests that the statement of events made by the council is false. The following legislation under The Local Government Act 2000 is relevant here, and this doesn’t appear to have been considered in the Ombudsman’s decision.

“22 Access to information

 (3)A written record must be kept of prescribed decisions made at meetings of local authorities executives, or committees of such executives, which are held in private.

(4)A written record must be kept of prescribed decisions made by individual members of local authority executives.

(5)Written records under subsection (3) or (4) must include reasons for the decisions to which they relate.

(6)Written records under subsections (3) and (4), together with such reports, background papers or other documents as may be prescribed, must be made available to members of the public in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.”

The Ombudsman states that she believes that John Satchwell gave a verbal report to the cabinet member, though for such an important and divisive issue, was this really a way for a council officer and council to proceed?

11. Mr B was at that park in 2013 and saw a council contractor rounding up the geese. Officer Y and the contractors told Mr B that the Council had relocated the geese. Mr B knew that relocation is illegal and so he questioned the Council about this. Another officer sent him some photographs of geese telling him these were the geese being released.

12. In 2014, Mr B noticed a large number of the geese had gone. Officer Y again told him that it had relocated the geese. Mr B challenged the Council about this and it later admitted that Officer Y had misled Mr B and the Council had in fact culled the geese in 2013 and 2014, using a licensed contractor.

13. The relationship between Mr B and the officer had become fraught. Officer Y threatened Mr B and Mr B complained to the Council.

14. The Council found that: • Officer Y had misled Mr B, twice telling him the Council had relocated the geese when it had in fact culled them. • The Council had acted within the law when it culled the geese. • The Council could have asked the Cabinet Member to review the situation and confirm the decision to cull in 2014, but it was not wrong for the Council to act in accordance with the approval given in 2013. • It could not conclude whether Officer Y had breached the Council’s officer code of conduct because there was no independent witness to their conversations. • Although Officer Y lives in a house in the park he did not take the decision to cull the geese for personal gain. • Officer Y had threatened Mr B.

It should be stated that it was the so called “independent investigator” employed for £25 per hour by Sandwell council who made these conclusions. We will look at how Satchwell and others DID breach the officer code of conduct further on in this post.

15. At this time Mr B also submitted a petition to the Council against the culling of the geese and calling for the Council to continue with non lethal means. Under the Council’s petition scheme, if it receives 1500 signatures the organiser may call a senior officer to give evidence at a public meeting of the relevant scrutiny board.  Mr B attended the board meeting and made his case. The Council asked the board to consider a ‘statement of purpose’; essentially a summary of its geese-management policy for further consultation, in light of the controversy the cull had created.

16. The board decided not to take any action on the petition itself but did endorse the statement of purpose and asked officers to report to the committee on how it proposed to consult on this.

17. The Council’s policy allows a petitioner to ask for a review of the board’s decision if he believes the Council has not followed the correct procedure. It will not hear the petition itself. Mr B asked for a review. He said the Council had not followed the process and he did not get a response to his formal complaint until after the hearing and would like to have shared the findings with the board. The Council decided that Mr B had not identified which parts of the process the Council had not followed and so the matter did not progress further. The Council did however respond to Mr B’s later complaint about how the board conducted the meeting. It did not uphold his complaint.

18. The Council has apologised to Mr B for misleading him about culling the geese. It has reminded officers about the code of conduct to which they must work.

19. The Council has since consulted the public about the geese and whether these cause problems for park users.

In paragraph 20- the ombudsman sets out my complaint points. I have again used relevant links for further evidence to illustrate these complaint points.

” 20The Council has not given its decision to cull Canada geese due consideration. Mainly because it has not produced evidence that the geese population is too large, or has increased and crucially it has not proved that the geese are a risk to public health or safety, as required by the Natural England’s licence. Also the Council did not properly record its decision when the Cabinet Member approved the cull in 2013.

The Council either did not carry out egg pricking properly or if it did, it did not properly record its actions.

• The Council and its contractor lied to him, telling him it was relocating and not culling the geese.

• The Council did not check that its contractor acted properly. Mr B says the contractor asked him to help round up the geese because it did not have enough people, and the holding pen appeared to have been erected that day contrary to the technical guidance issued by Natural England. Mr B also says the Council was not present when the birds were killed and so cannot be sure its contractors used the correct methods.

• The Council did not send him its investigation report before the committee heard his petition. The Council knew this had findings Mr B could have used, such as that officers misled him.

• The Council has consulted the public and interested organisations on the new draft policy, but its questionnaire was biased and it gave two different versions of the draft policy.

In paragraphs 21-31 The Ombudsman considers my complaints on behalf of the geese. Note the explanations I have already given on the use of the words “injustice” and “fault” which cannot be applied to them under the Ombudsman’s rules.

“Was there fault by the Council causing injustice?

The Council’s decision to cull the geese

21. I appreciate that Mr B has very strong concerns about animal and wildlife welfare. The geese do not have a voice of their own and rely on Mr B to speak in their interest. However, the Council did give the matter due consideration before culling geese in 2013, and there is no fault in how it reached its decision.

I consider the “due consideration” comment to be absolutely scandalous. I believe that even an unbiased observer would note that “consideration” was tasked to one officer who had a clear prejudiced interest in undertaking the report- HE LIVES IN ONE OF THE UNAMED PARKS WHERE CULLING TOOK PLACE.

I remain in fundamental disagreement with this statement, as I have stated previously and will always believe, the conduct of John Satchwell was such that he created the report to facilitate something he wanted rid of, outside his property and in the other park in which his son was managing a restoration project. I have been told as much by current SMBC staff who served under him.

It is also necessary to point out that he facilitated getting his brother in law a gardening job within Dartmouth Park, the same park enjoying a lottery funded restoration project that saw his son get a lucrative job as the “project manager”. It is not known at this time what experience John Satchwell Junior had to manage such a project. It would later be stated when their figures of complaints against geese were unravelled as a lie, that it was these  “verbal” complaints to “gardeners” and rangers which the council took into consideration.

No records can be produced of increase of goose numbers over time,

no evidence of disease,

no evidence of accidents from slippages,

no evidence of numerous complaints by members of the public.

These are entirely relevant to the conditions of the licence for lawful use which the council claim to be relying on. Without this evidence there is “fault” on their part.

 I have produced evidence however from council funded publicly released newsletters which show that the council’s own egg pricking at Dartmouth Park and other sites was not taking place in the years immediately prior to the cull of 2013/14 and so they were not following their own procedures.

Satchwell’s own son would have, should have been responsible for management in this park, and his failure to do so facilitated his father in taking an action to cover up his son’s failure. There are clear conflicts of nepotism throughout Satchwell’s decision making process, not least the choice of the two unidentified parks in his report. Who took the decision to cull IN THESE TWO PARKS, ON WHAT EVIDENCE? WHERE IS THE RECORD OF JUSTIFICATION, AND ALSO THE FORMAL DECISION?

The count of geese was not recorded and neither did the council have a starting point of how many geese had increased from one time period to another time period. Crucially from the start of their 1997 policy and up to April 2013 when Satchwell’s report was allegedly written.

22. The briefing paper sets out the reasons why the Council thinks a cull necessary. The Council has given some information about how it treated eggs to stop them from hatching in an attempt to control the population before deciding to cull. The Council says it conducted a count in 2013. I agree that the evidence of this is not clear and I have taken into account that Mr B disputes the Council’s figures. However it is clear that there remained around 20 geese on that site as well as goslings. It is for the Council to decide what population is manageable in the interests of public health and safety, and if there is any doubt about the size of the population before the cull, the outcome would have been the same: the Council would have culled the geese to the same or a similar number, deciding that any more than this is too many. 

I don’t agree with this statement. I have not been provided with any evidence or information about how the council via its own staff were pricking eggs prior to 2013. Why did they only conduct a count in 2013, and what evidence do they have that the numbers were to quote the approved 1997 policy “that if flocks at individual locations increase alarmingly…”

As policy I believe the wording of this document to be judicial and exact and not ad hoc to be amended at a later date.

The key word here is “increase”. What evidence do the council have that there was any increase at all? If they have none then how are they following their own policy? A single one off count in 2013 cannot justify a cull and their policy when they cannot show any “alarming increase” since the 1997 policy was introduced.

The council  also conveniently cannot produce the report from 1997 which informed this policy and presumably would have contained goose counts from that year in order to justify the policy. Without this key relevant evidence of “increase”, a reasoned council and officer  would not have produced a report and could not have produced a report which led to a decision being taken that would have been the same the Ombudsman  suggests.

The words  “the size of the population” are not in the council 1997 policy, and this cannot be ignored because it clearly states “alarming increase” which the council cannot show occurred. Their decision is therefore not based on careful consideration of their existing policy but of an ad hoc one which Satchwell created and was wrongly endorsed. I would again state that there is no mention of the 1997 policy in Satchwell’s report, and this I believe was absent because they had forgotten about the policy and the precise wording of it.

In contrast to the unrecorded change of direction following Satchwell’s report, the 1997 policy was recorded and formally endorsed. Surely then this key point cannot be overlooked. The council cannot justify evidence that goose numbers had “alarmingly increased”, and if they had “alarmingly increased” this would be as a result of policy failure of their rangers failing to carry out egg pricking- which the council cannot produce any evidence was taking place.

I have produced independent evidence from West Midland Bird Club reports that suggest no alarming increase but an actual decrease in goose numbers leading up to the decision to cull.

This appears to me to be as suggested, in 2013 John Satchwell decided to rid two parks in which he had a personal and prejudicial interest of Canada geese, and I also believe this was a personal slight against myself when I had in the months prior to this made representations to The Lake District National Park authority about a cull of geese at Lake Windermere via what do they know.com.

This was publicly available and Satchwell’s report was a vindictive response to this. Based on the outcome of this highly publicised event where that authority decided against culling, both Satchwell and Sandwell council were aware that alternatives to culling could be undertaken; they just chose to bypass this by not making a cull in Sandwell public knowledge and deceiving members of the public to cover their deceitful tracks.

 In light of the opposition to that cull, there would have been a similar outcry in Sandwell. The cull would not have gone ahead if the public had had prior knowledge of it. The Ombudsman cannot state that the cull would have gone ahead as fact.

23. The Council must consider the risk to public health and safety, or it cannot use lethal methods to control the geese population. It is sufficient for it to do this by considering published information against its observations on site. I would not expect the Council to carry out laboratory investigations. The Council and its contractor are liable for prosecution if it cannot show that it had to cull the geese to protect public health and safety. Prosecution is outside the Ombudsman’s remit.

The “published information” was found after the event of culling in order to try to justify the cull and NOT before it. Most of this is biased American hunting/persecution literature to facilitate mass slaughter to aid their crooked aviation and gun lobby industries. If the Ombudsman does not expect the council to carry out laboratory investigations to prove what they are claiming, then this is culling without evidence, and culling with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately this policy is one we have seen with Government organisations in badger culls. BUT AS ALREADY STATED- THE GEESE HAVE NO VOICE FOR THE OMBUDSMAN.

I would remind people about evidence John Satchwell gave under scrutiny to my question about laboratory evidence below.

VN850223

24. Overall, this is a decision taken by the Council’s Members and Director with authority to do so, after due consideration. It is open to the Council to make this decision having considered the merits of the issue. The Ombudsman would expect the Council to record the reasons for a decision and it should note this in future, even if it is only to verify the reasons set out by the officer’s report.

As stated via existing approved policy- no evidence of alarming increase = no justification for cull. Due consideration is based only on evidence, if council cannot justify any evidence then no cull. Any deviation from this is not following council policy but making a new ad hoc policy. The council did not consider “the merits of the issue” as they had only the opinion of one biased officer, who did not give them accurate information. It is also worth pointing out that Maria Crompton originally stated absolute rubbish concerning non-native muscovy ducks and wanting to reintroduce them into parks in place of the “non -native” geese. This appears to now have been dropped, yet nobody including the ombudsman appears to have noted this “reason“.

It is also worth pointing out what then Monitoring officer Neeraj Sharma wrote to Director Adrian Scarrott on these points. If there was no “fault” by the council structure, then why would she have thought it necessary to write to him to “consider” doing things differently?

Though the Ombudsman may not consider these points to be an admission of “fault” by Neeraj Sharma, it is as pretty bloody close as you can get to it as far as I am concerned.

The contractor’s actions and Natural England Guidance

25. There is no evidence of fault by the contractor in how it carried out the cull itself. The contractor acts on behalf of the Council and so Council officers do not need to be present when the contractor rounds up the geese or when it kills them. I have looked at the technical guidance. This suggests good practice. The contractor is not bound by it, but should take it into account. Although the contractor should clearly not have asked the public for help, there is no evidence of fault by it in how it rounded up the geese. The Council has not produced records of how the geese were killed or if this met the technical guidance. Although there is no evidence that the contractor did not use the accepted methods and the Council does not need to be present, it must monitor its contractors and in this case its monitoring was not sufficient. The Council should consider further how it does this so that it can be satisfied the contractor acts properly on the Council’s behalf.

 

I would note again that the contractors lied to both myself and three other witnesses stating the geese would be released at Sandwell Valley and not culled. Has this ever been denied by the council on whose behalf they were acting? Surely this is “fault” on their part if “fault” was found with Satchwell telling the same lie? There is compelling evidence of “fault” with the contractor because they also lied.

Regarding the Ombudsman’s test for fault

“The service provider is directly responsible for the action that has caused the alleged fault.”

If the contractor is included within the remit of the council itself under the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, then there is “fault” on their part for their direct role in the lie and being complicit as a part of it.

“The type and scale of the fault amounts to a particularly serious failure to meet normally expected standards of public service.”

Council contractors should not lie to the public, and this is underlined in paragraph 27.

It is accepted by the Ombudsman that Sandwell council appeared to give their contractor free reign of culling, laying on facilities to do so without scrutiny or record of how they killed the birds. This is undoubtedly fairly serious criticism of the council’s cull and so when she also states that there was no “fault” in how the council carried out the cull, this is perhaps a contradictory caveat.

The Ombudsman cannot rule on Animal welfare matters and how the contractors rounded up the geese. She was not there and did not see what happened. I was. The RSPCA were approached at the time about this aspect but their call centre handlers were clearly risk averse in taking details about a corporate body and “pest controller”.

What the Ombudsman also did not investigate and most likely cannot are the standards of animal husbandry and biosecurity with which the council allowed its contractor free access to a farm where it rears animals for human consumption. It exports these condemned animals once they have served their purpose for petting and tourism to another farm in Warwickshire for slaughter. I.E NO BIRDS OR ANIMALS ARE SUPPOSEDLY KILLED ON THIS FARM.

How then or who then more to the point decided that wild birds should be imported, contained and killed within the farm environment? There is no record of this decision and who took it either. It is a shocking misuse of public money and  food standard security and yet no one has ever investigated this part of the cull story. In this regard outside the powers of the Ombudsman, she also cannot rule that the council carried out a cull within an area that was suitable.

 

That officers misled Mr B

26. The Council has upheld this complaint. It has apologised to Mr B and has considered its officers actions against its Code of Conduct. The Ombudsman cannot investigate personnel issues and so I have not made a finding as to whether officers breached the code or whether the Council took appropriate disciplinary action.

I have still to have any explanation as to what happened on the day that the geese in Victoria park in 2013 were rounded up and Matt Darby misused his .GOV email account to send me what I am now supposed to believe were staged pictures. I asked for the Ombudsman to explain the dichotomy of the fact that the council via the independent investigator had already stated that birds had been “released”- which would be illegal, yet it has been stated that they did not contravene any laws. HOW CAN THIS BE THE CASE? West Midlands Police similarly will not answer this point, and I will look at their actions in this matter in a separate future blog post.

Though the Ombudsman states that she cannot look at the officer code of conduct, I WILL HERE, to demonstrate just how seriously John Satchwell and the other liars breached this code, yet appear to have gone largely unpunished by their senior director, monitoring officer and chief executive officer Jan Britton. The code to which ALL Sandwell council officers from the chief executive down are subject to is shown below.

code

Lying to members of the public and making threats is NOT a high standard of conduct! “Honesty”, “objectivity” and “integrity” are also not nouns that could be associated with the parks and countryside management service under the guidance of John Satchwell.

I would also seriously question the decision to cull geese in the two parks to be unselfish actions. Links with sports clubs to those involved in this cull have been documented.

 

“4.2 Employees shall within their public employed capacity conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s  trust and confidence in the integrity of the Council and never undertake any action which would bring the Council, or its members or officers into disrepute.”

I think that this constitutes the main purpose of the officer code, and just how serious the breach was by John Satchwell, Chris Moore, Matt Darby and Paul Smith. But it should  not just be limited to them because officers also lied in a freedom of information request stating that “no one was lied to”- which of course we now fundamentally know to be an absolute lie based on the Ombudsman’s ruling.

Lying to the public is again relevant here. Not only did these four officers breach the code, but their entire department and council are now under scrutiny because of the failure to uphold it. But this also shows just how much Directors like Adrian Scarrott and others above him were failing to spot this behaviour. It also shows how the councillors and cabinet members and leader of the council were also failing to address this issue.

No senior councillor from Sandwell has addressed the serious breaches of this code with the parks and countryside department, and it is NOT satisfactory to state that employees have been reminded of the code that they should work to. No senior councillor has yet condemned or apologised for the lies of John Satchwell and others.

I myself do not trust the word of ANY Sandwell council officer based upon this experience, and I would urge others to think along similar lines when reading this. Any future dealings that I have with Sandwell council officers are tarnished beyond repair by the actions of those who have been previously mentioned. How is it possible to believe anything that Matt Darby says to be true when he continues to work for Sandwell council and has sent me staged pictures from his Sandwell email account?

How can anyone have any confidence in what council officers at Sandwell are saying is the truth or lies?

27. The Council is responsible for the contractor as this acts on the Council’s behalf. The Council’s contractor also misled Mr B when it told him it was not going to cull the geese.

This is an important point and should be noted by the council in that its contractors lied to members of the public as well as its officers.

How the Council handled the petition

28. Mr B’s video recording of the Scrutiny Board meeting makes clear that the Council followed its published process. Mr B was given an opportunity to put his case and that the Board considered this and the petition. The Board did not endorse the petition but it is clear it understood the issues presented and reached a decision having considered these.

I do not believe that the councillors on this committee had a clue what happened in regard to this cull. They took just 10 minutes to reach a decision of “no action” when at the very least there are many points within the petition that required investigation- but of course I was denied access to the fact that the council had found that Satchwell had lied by Adrian Scarrott, who also gave evidence at that meeting. How is it “clear” that it understood the issues presented?

29. Mr B is understandably frustrated that the Council did not send him the response to his formal complaint until after the Board considered his petition. The Council’s findings may have added some context to the Board’s consideration, but it is unlikely to have altered the outcome, particularly as the cull had already happened. The Board asked the Council to consult on its ‘statement of purpose’ and present its findings and this is a reasonable means to address the concerns raised by the petition.

I believe that it would have undermined John Satchwell as a credible witness. I would have course cross examined him about his lies at this meeting and explored aspects of nepotism further. I would have expected the councillors at this point to have considered the officer code of conduct and questioned him about it, but it is worth pointing out that the committee contained councillors to whom Satchwell is close to such as now Sandwell Council Deputy Leader Syeda Khatun, and Bob Lloyd.

30. Mr B had the opportunity to ask the Council to review the Board’s decision if he thought it had not followed the process. He did do this when he got the Council’s response to his formal complaint. But the Council did not accept that new information that officer’s had misled him was relevant to the process the Board followed when dealing with his petition and so it did not consider this as a formal review. This is not unreasonable and the Council did respond to process issues Mr B raised when he later complained again. In addition, none of these issues (such as a member of an organisation aligned with the Council sitting with officers) would have fatally flawed the hearing of his petition.

This is the Ombudman’s decision with which I do not agree. The councillors failed to investigate the lies told by several officers within one department, or investigate if these lies were being spread under duress by the actions of one senior manager downward. That this failure resulted in taking “no action” makes them ineffectual as councillors to hold the executive to account.

The Council’s consultation

31. I have read the Council’s questionnaire and Mr B’s comments on this. The purpose is to gauge the public opinion about if or how the Council should manage the geese. The Council has also sought views on its draft ‘statement of purpose’ which is essentially sets out its policy. Mr B may not agree with the wording of the questions but taken together, these are sufficient to gauge public opinion. Officers have referred to the draft statement as a new policy and a draft policy when it is neither of these. The Council should be clearer about this but it does not impact on the consultation significantly.

The only comment I would make on this is that the questions were designed to seek answers from those who considered geese to be “a problem” where as it did not apply the same opportunity for those who did not. Many people also saw this flaw in the questionnaire and not just myself. In any case the questionnaire results showed that the majority of the public did not agree with culling geese, which once again undermines the Ombudsman’s statement that culling would have gone ahead anyway had the council made public their proposed actions.
Agreed action

32. The Council and its contractor misled Mr B about the geese and although it has investigated the matter and apologised, this does not remedy the additional time and trouble the Council put him to as he tried to find out the truth. The Council has agreed to pay Mr B £150 in recognition of this. Mr B has refused to accept this payment because he did not expect or wish to receive any personal advantage from making the complaint.

33. The Council will review how it records its decisions so its reasons are clear.

Final decision

34. The Council was at fault when it misled Mr B about culling Canada geese. It has investigated this and apologised to him, but it should also pay him £150 in recognition of the extra time and trouble this put him to. There was no fault in how the Council reached its decision to cull the geese or how the contractors operated. The Council should however record the reasons for its decisions.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Personal statement.

I would like to make clear as stated at the start of this post that I refused the £150 that the ombudsman recommended and which Sandwell Council via Adrian Scarrott agreed to pay. I pointed out to the LGO that this figure was probably 20 times less than I had personally spent on this campaign and the time runs into hundreds of hours. BUT IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE MONEY, IT WAS ABOUT THE CAUSE. IT WAS ABOUT THE INJUSTICE. IT WAS ABOUT THE CANADA GEESE WHO COULD NOT DEFEND THEMSELVES.

It would be perverse as far as I am concerned and morally bankrupt to accept blood money apologies from a corrupt from the top down local authority.

Contrast this if you will, with the likely large but undisclosed severance payments of the top officers who lied about this issue, who breached the officer code of conduct corrupting their whole department and their council. Satchwell’s pay as parks manager was in the region of £60-70,000 per annum.

For 40+ years service (and the same for Chris Moore), they will have received an ample pension, and for what? How far have SMBC delved into what they and others were doing and helping themselves through their jobs? Is their payment bought to silence them from spilling the beans on what local authority members were also doing? Lying it seems, deceiving the public and serving yourself favours whilst getting good jobs for your family members to cement your own position is absolutely rife within Sandwell council- particularly the parks department and within Sandwell Valley- where practically the whole staff are related to one another or have very close relationships.

But as we know, the LGO cannot look into “personnel issues”. This would be the job of Steve Handley, former street scene director at SMBC who also went the way of the exit door and also lied in a freedom of information request. Adrian Scarrott, current Neighbourhoods director is also on his way out- and good riddance because his directorship has seen nothing but corruption run rife below him which he failed to deal with.

IT IS CLEAR FOR ANYONE TO SEE THAT THIS SHIP, THIS DEPARTMENT IS SINKING UNDER A MASSIVE WEIGHT OF CORRUPTION, YET THE CABINET MEMBERS WHO PRESIDED OVER THIS CORRUPTION APPEAR TO HAVE GONE UNSCRUTINISED BY THE COUNCIL THEMSELVES.

Maria Crompton lied on the radio about egg pricking, and was probably misled by the same individual who had given the verbal briefing.

NO records of meetings, or decisions taken is the main fault found by the LGO for SMBC to consider, and this goes beyond My complaint about the geese, because it appears to be a central trait which has been operating within Sandwell’s Labour leadership  for years.

The ombudsman wrote to Chief executive Jan Brittain in July this year regarding the council’s complaints annual review.

The table below shows that Sandwell had 11 complaints upheld against it over the period. Many of the council’s departments are failing or inadequate, and given that most of the directors have left the council in recent times, it is perhaps no surprise that the new leadership now recognises this where the other previous idiot could not.

I consider the decision of the ombudsman in terms of not criticising the actions of the council in how it reached the decision to cull to be both disappointing and perverse. They cannot justify their actions with any irrefutable evidence concerning increase of goose numbers and cannot show any record for making the decision because they never had any to start with. Satchwell’s report was a heavily plagiarised rewording of bullet points cherry picked from a Natural England guidance PDF. The council did not consult the public about changing their policy but lied to them and treated me with total contempt.

The wording of this decision however should not be taken as a green light by Sandwell or any other local authority to conduct similar culls in the same vein in the future. I would remind others thinking  of doing so about how many so called “professionals” have fallen on their swords and are no more in their jobs within this council, and we would give exactly the same level of scrutiny into their affairs to any other local authority employees from any other council should they decide on a similar course of action.

The actions of the contractor whilst not able to be considered by the Ombudsman have been criticised in this decision in that they lied and provided false information. There is clear “fault” in how they operated because they lied about their very job! This has been poorly worded in the ombudsman’s summing up given that she already found fault in this instance in paragraph 27.

“27. The Council is responsible for the contractor as this acts on the Council’s behalf. The Council’s contractor also misled Mr B when it told him it was not going to cull the geese.”

The council should take awareness of this and no longer use this contractor.

Anything less than this is condoning their actions of dishonesty. They cannot discipline a contractor as they supposedly did with John Satchwell and others under the officer code of conduct because they are not council employees. Presumably Sandwell do not have a code of conduct for contractors? I would like to see some statement on this from the leadership of the council, and if they continue to use the services of Pestex, why they chose this company in the first place. They are not a professional outfit when they lie to members of the public about their own job, and even try to rope them into rounding up the birds for slaughter!

Much of the problem surrounding the way in which the complaint could be dealt with centres around the continuing corrupting influence of Natural England and DEFRA to set policy, based largely on the work of one or two individuals who for all we know operate in exactly the same corrupt manner that Sandwell council officers operated in this case. Their reports and recommendations have led to massive slaughter but productivity for economic interests whom I believe influenced their policy decisions. Add to this the corrupting influence of politicians and together they can do virtually anything they like without of course any voice for the voiceless.

Unfortunately investigations into wrongdoing and “fault” and “injustice” are investigated by the Ombudsman rules, made by civil servants and politicians- and liars know how to play the game to suit them.

It’s all about how much you give, and how much money you are prepared to pay- that’s feeding the ducks now. There have been all sorts of rubbish written on social media concerning bread, but let’s look at one of the so called “duck foods” on offer as an alternative. Priced at £1.50 for this you get 525ml by volume- not sure why this is not expressed in weight- but probably because it isn’t very much.

These pea sized pellets float and the ducks do appear to like eating them, as they do almost anything. The problem I have with this so called “natural choice”, aside from the extortionate price, is that when you take a closer look at the ingredients, it is anything but “natural”.

Boasts are made about vitamins and minerals which “boost the birds immunity and general health”.

But let’s take a closer look at some of the so called “technical stuff” in the ingredients. The list itself is pretty vague and poorly explained. “Cereals and cereal by products, oilseed by products, fish meal, oils and fats, minerals and natural antioxidant.”

Firstly protein at 19% would equate to  99.79  ml of the product. As the bread haters like to falsely inform people about bread causing “angel wing”, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to read of such a high protein content in this alternative “duck food.”

The mass of the vitamins in the food is also poorly expressed in International Units, the common  measurement of medications, vaccines and vitamins. Unfortunately the type of vitamins on the ingredients list are not defined and so this makes it impossible to calculate the amount in standard micrograms or milligrams. It is also further strange that they have then expressed the amount as a mixed iu/kg. Perhaps the amount expressed in IU fools people into thinking that the birds are getting a load more of the “good stuff” than they really are- I mean 8000 iu/kg of vitamin A sounds a lot doesn’t it? But what is this  actual mass by weight? Fortunately there is an excellent conversion chart available to work this out.

The equivalents of 1 IU for the stated vitamins are:

• Vitamin A: 1 IU is the biological equivalent of 0.3 mcg retinol, or of 0.6 mcg beta-carotene
• Vitamin D: 1 IU is the biological equivalent of 0.025 mcg cholecalciferol or ergocalciferol
• Vitamin E: 1 IU is the biological equivalent of 0.67 mg d-alpha-tocopherol, or 0.9 mg of dl-alpha-tocopherol

In the ingredients list on this product therefore the type of vitamin A  and E are not defined so we do not know what type of vitamin is in the food but as vitamin D3 – cholecalciferol is listed this can be calculated.

To convert Vitamin D3:

1IU=0.025mcg

800 IU x 0.025= 16mcg/kg

In one packet 525ml is equivalent to 525 milligrams.

1 gram  = 1000 milligrams or 1,000,000 micrograms

there are 1000 grams in 1 kg, or 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) micrograms.

This clearly does not amount to much D3 content per pack, even though the 800IU sounds quite a large quantity. Given that many birds may be on a lake, the amount each bird consumes is further impossible to calculate. Some may get more, others nothing at all.

It is certainly the case that birds can suffer from calcium deficiency, but also true that they can also suffer from over exposure to such material as supplements. One could ask the question “is it ethical to medicate wild bird food, if the birds are not ill?”

But the biggest surprise about this “natural choice” is the revelation that it contains “fish meal”. For those who are interested in ethical considerations or even veganism, it is perhaps inconsistent to be buying a product which contains ground up fish offal and bones. In fact no wildfowl would ever eat such material in the wild from fish, and so the idea that this is a “natural food” starts to unravel at the first hurdle when looking at the ingredients list. This food is in fact little more than fish food repackaged with a picture of a cute duckling on the front to advertise it.

As winter approaches and food becomes scarce, it is perhaps left to the consumer as to what they are prepared to pay to care for our wildfowl. I’m not sure birds that can decide what they want to eat and when they want to eat for themselves are that interested in the obsession of human dieting and nutrition. It is just about survival, and without natural vegetation on offer, a slice of bread goes a lot further than glorified fish guts.

On October 29th and 30th Wolverhampton will be hosting the West Midlands Vegan festival. This year it will be in two locations, the  Wolverhampton Civic Centre and the Art gallery. This two day event saw hundreds of people descend on the city last year and we also had a stall there over the two days.

 

Gooseman had a whale of a time and there were a couple of other creatures on the loose.

 

 

So here you will find artwork, clothing, literature, talks, campaigns and most importantly some very good food- all with an ethical none animal abusing theme.

 

The second online petition has now closed. On behalf of the geese in Sandwell I would like to thank all those who shared and signed this petition via facebook and social media and by reading one of our leaflets.

With a new change of leadership in Sandwell (karma), and with the demise of much of the lecherous administration that ruled in the parks department, it is now hoped that this council will not be foolish enough to try a stunt like this again. It should also serve as a warning to other local authorities in how not to carry out its business, where standards of high service should be expected, but where in this instance, officers in positions of trust manufactured a situation.

Some of the comments made on the petition have been put into memes .

Here are a couple more.

 

Not Sandwell this time but neighbouring Walsall, where one nature reserve site has over the years lost many birds due to inconsiderate motorists running them over as they cross between two lakes separated by a busy main road. It is an issue that has been going on for many years without resolution.

Of course the foolishness of locating a road between two pools where wildlife cross is one that is now lost to history, but that doesn’t mean that this has to continue forever or that this highway should remain as it is.

Recently, this longstanding issue received some unprecedented publicity , largely due to the advent of social media, when two cygnets were run over by a reported impatient driver who drove off without stopping as the swan family were crossing the road.

A petition was launched calling for improved traffic calming measures, but the driver herself appears to have been given little more than a ticking off by the police, who have refused to officially confirm that they traced the vehicle that she was in, but instead left it to social media to disseminate that they had.

Walsall council manage the site, and following other deaths, in 2006 they installed several signs along the road and rubble strips which they hoped would prevent accidents.

 

The signs may be fine but the application to actually slow vehicles down was never up to scratch, and today the so called “rubble strips” are little more than coloured punctuations on a sentence of death by idiots who insist on speeding along this straight road.

But added to this appears to be a total lack of understanding from the council as to the view that the birds have when attempting to cross this road of death. Unfortunately there is an ill defined pavement cum layby , if it even is one, where cars park alongside the road, and where people are supposed to also walk.

What chance then of anyone seeing birds crossing between a dingy overgrown clump of bushes and trees on the main lake with additional cars also blocking the view, and what chance of the birds realising that they are in danger when they unaware of any green cross code?

There is no pavement on a significant part of the road, thus forcing people into the road when people are parked alongside the road. The legality of all this is something which needs to be looked at, especially from a disabled perspective.

A further obstacle is encountered further on in the form of an ironic  safety barrier over a brook which feeds the pool, where again people are forced to walk in the road to get around it because some highways fool didn’t consider that this may cause some danger.

Unfortunately despite the campaigners efforts the council appear to have decided to allow the status quo to continue and in a report to be considered at the full council meeting have recommended that nothing is done as there have been no accidents to human life in the last five years. Their ignorance in seeing what a piss poor job of a road layout they have created is only blinded by their sheer stupidity and apathy to this situation, but unfortunately this appears to be the price of civil service accademia, with all common sense apparently removed on obtaining a university degree.

And then there is of course the old “cash strapped council” rhetoric so loved by leftist local authorities, when the councillors are themselves pocketing large sums of money from meeting attendance for “special responsibilities.” Onward march the suited trousered philanthropists.

Well in terms of funding, I have uncovered that rather than being “cash strapped”   the authority did have and still has the money to provide “improvements”  to this troubled wildlife haven.

A development at Linley Road just around the corner on a former care home in 2011 produced a section 106 agreement between the developer and the council. Council documents show that they had originally intended to grant  £41, 760  to the swag pool – the larger of the two waterbodies.

I submitted a freedom of information request to Walsall council to clarify what had happened to this money, as it is quite evident that nothing has been spent on improvements at this site during this time.

The council confirmed that not one penny had in fact gone to the nature reserve site but instead to other more economically viable human orientated facilities like The Walsall Arboretum, where there is a prestige redevelopment strategy.

“I can confirm that £41,760 was received by Walsall Council with £41187.89 as an open space contribution (A percentage is taken for planning costs), with a deadline to spend by 1st August 2018 – the funding has all been committed.

The S106 Agreement states “To use the Open Space Contribution for provision of open space within the wider vicinity in accordance with the Council’s Urban Open Space Supplementary Planning Document and Planning
Policy Guidance 17: Planning for Open Space, Sport and Recreation.”  There is no reference to Stubbers Green in the section 106 agreement

10% (£4,119) of the funding was top-sliced for the Arboretum restoration project, 15% was top-sliced for ongoing maintenance of improvements (in line with all S106 schemes now) and the rest was spent on various improvements at Blackwood Park, Doe Bank Park, High Heath Park and Rushall
Park.”

I’m not sure what the term “top-sliced” means here but it is evident that somewhere in the pipeline, officers or councillors or both in Walsall Council decided to shaft Stubbers Green , and there is no clear reason given as to why?

The council’s report states “Officers from Clean and Green Services are exploring opportunities to secure external funding that could be used to provide environmental and ecological improvements to the nature reserve.”

Well perhaps someone should have looked a bit bloody harder at money they had in the bank before deciding to spend it on other sites.

It is also fair to point out that the former leader of WMBC , Councillor Mike Bird declared a personal and prejudicial interest at the meeting where the application was approved, yet this is not made clear as to what this was.

The development itself appears to be well established in a square of 13 houses.

So this leaves a site where road kill is happening quite frequently up shit creak, and is only likely to continue when the local authority screw it out of money that would have been put to better use than in the aforementioned parks.

Someone once told me that “you have to see things from the point of view of a bird” in looking at problems such as this, and since hearing this I have never looked at anything the same again. The view below is a birds eye view at their level. So imagine having this view obstructed by a parked car blocking it. Then the further issue of an observation/feeding platform obstacle badly positioned so that members of the public can stand and encourage said birds across the road. It should never have been put there.

If only there were more bird brains on Walsall council instead of human ones.

 

 

I have previously blogged about the largely internet and social media fuelled nonsense concerning feeding birds bread as opposed to feeding them other food made out of the same “starchy treat” material.

This has been widespread over the last few months reaching fever pitch with heir to British Waterways , The Canal and Rivers Trust putting forward what is an aggressive marketing campaign trying to hook canal users with a bag of grapes and lettuce. It is difficult to see how they can prove the voracity of the claims about the number of loaves thrown into the canals and watercourses, (a reputed 6 million) ,or for that matter how this number has decreased by 2.5 million as a consequence of their previous campaign.

Now as a charity, they are not like BW who were reliant on Government funding but have to find their own. Of course if they were not as spectacular a failure as British Waterways to stop pollution from industry as well as their own sanctioned practices of the past, one might take seriously their cries of bread pollution in canals. BUT WE SHOULD NOT LOOSE SIGHT THAT THIS CAMPAIGN IS MERELY A SELF PROMOTIONAL EXERCISE FOR THE CANAL AND RIVERS TRUST.

Local authorities have latched onto this to some extent, including Sandwell, who have now erected signs in several parks concerning feeding. It was pointed out by Animal Aid consultant John Bryant who met with us in two of Sandwell’s green flag parks where culling had happened , that if the council were moaning about the public feeding the birds, then they had absolutely failed in communicating that message with adequate signage.

It would be foolish to link this matter to culls, because it has nothing at all to do with the council’s own failures of groundcare and management of its parks and green spaces for wildlife, and any attempt to somehow blame the public for these culls is quite perverse.

The signs are about right in terms of wording, but it is difficult to see how their interpretation is being followed or even how legally they could be enforced when anglers are allowed to chuck in basically anything without comment to feed the fish- including bread. This pastime also remains both anti social and dangerous to wildlife in Sandwell’s parks and open spaces.

Another local authority has also erected signs at a park site discouraging feeding bread, and also pointed out that bird seed is available from a shop run by a private concern nearby. Unfortunately this private operator appears to have hiked the price of the poultry container serving, costing £1 to £1.50. Such extortionate opportunism is exactly the point that I was making about those selling corn in my previous blog post on the subject.

Fortunately there is a very good article available looking at bread and the science behind some of the wild claims about bread being “bad for birds” which shows some refreshing common sense, without being spread by old wives’ tales. White and brown bread are not in fact that different nutritionally, contrary to the misinformation spread by local authorities.

I don’t know of any swan or wildfowl rescuers who do not use bread to feed the birds, as a part of their diet, including during their captive rehabilitation. By way of example The Swan Sanctuary based in London have stated the following on their website.

 

In my experience of swan rescue, I have not seen swans or other wildfowl for that matter ever interested in lettuce, grapes or peas. The stuff just stays there in situ day after day to rot, attracting the rats. At this point the question should be asked what is the difference between feeding birds bread that could go mouldy and cause harm and encourage rats (which appears to be a big problem for some people), and other foods which will go mouldy and cause harm and encourage rats?

Then for that matter corn itself. I am not sure if those spreading the seed about bread being a killer realise that uneaten corn dumped in large quantities under water will also go rotten, and be just as harmful if ingested as any bread. Rats also love corn by the way. There is also less risk associated with floating food than submerged in terms of ingesting lost and discarded tackle, lead shot and bacterial infestations lurking beneath the water.

Which brings me to the real problem, that there are some bloody lazy fools who think it is a good idea to chuck in mouldy trade waste in bulk for the birds to eat- yet it is this issue that local authorities continue to dodge for politically correct reasons.

There is simply no evidence that bread “causes angel wing in birds.” If it is the case then where are these birds if the figures of bread dumping offered by The Canal and Rivers Trust are to be believed?

It also concerns me that people with little education think that they are “educating” people by spreading these internet myths and unscientific facts, as well as supporting commercial wholesalers of corn. If you are paying more than £10 for a 20kg bag of corn, then don’t because you are being ripped off.

Unfortunately it seems that feeding the birds down your local park is now another commercial enterprise incurred as a result of a conscience tugging falsity about wild bird health coupled with health and safety gone mad. If people are priced out of making a connection with wildfowl that would otherwise not occur, that can only be a bad thing for both people and wildfowl.

It was over six months ago that we handed in the last paper petition to Sandwell Council regarding the culling of geese in Sandwell. This petition was presented to The Cabinet Petitions Committee on 18th May. “Progress” on petitions appears to be somewhat slower than the change of politics in Sandwell, especially given that this new committee does not now include any of the members that were on the committee at that time in May.

 

This week I received an agenda that the matter was now being discussed at the next petitions committee on 24th August. The response is recorded below.

 

At the time of presenting the petition in May, I was asked to provide a written copy of what I had stated at the meeting- which I did to both the investigating officer and the Democratic Services officer who forwarded it on. The officer stated that he would respond on a point by point basis. Unfortunately I have to date received NOTHING. It should also be stated that accompanying the petition in February was a link to our report, The Prejudiced Lie– a source document detailing the whole sorry affair that has unfolded regards the council’s actions over the last few years.

This response doesn’t acknowledge this or the points made in the presentation, which the officer has. It is worth looking at the two petitions presented to the council and their wording, which although both asked for “non-lethal methods” are quite different in what they were calling for. The first was about an officer giving evidence under scrutiny to explain the actions of the council. This farcical meeting and its decision of councillors to take “no action”, especially looks remiss now considering the departure of the main protagonist behind the cull, whose actions and professional integrity can certainly be called into question.

 

 

The petition handed in in May read as follows, and I have underlined the part which SMBC officers appear to have ignored addressing- which is behind the entire reasons why the council may choose in future to carry out culls. It is their actions which control if this does or does not happen, and any attempts to ignore implementing “non-lethal methods” of site management only appear to suggest that they are not committed to no culls in the future.

Groundcare carried out by Council staff and more importantly the managers who control what work and budget is spent in parks and green spaces underpin “the conflicts of interest” that were highlighted in this petition. “Poor management” includes not carrying out regular sweeps of pathways of excrement for which the council claimed was a “health and safety risk” and the reason for culling under licence, yet from what I can see in the last six months they are quite satisfied to leave this “hazard” in situ.

Unfortunately the previous incumbent in parks management was content to blame his and his staffs failure for groundcare on the scapegoat geese, but this will not do going forward, if the council as they say are about justifying actions under scrutiny. If they want to reduce complaints, which we know to be largely fictitious, then they will have to show that they have made some effort to reduce conflicts with park users by clearing up the shit. After all, it’s “a health a safety risk” isn’t it?

Park pathways for some reason were deliberately made to not allow sweeping machines around Victoria Park, and the standard of work carried out here can be seen to be unbelievably poor. For some reason park management appeared to have approved contracts very regularly to two contractors, one based in Tipton, the other in Cannock. One might ask if preferment goes by the letter and not by the law in procurement, or if old family connections were put above competitive tendering when work was carried out in Sandwell’s parks- but that isn’t for me to investigate is it?

Of course one could take the view that by leaving things as they are, the only “progress” made is that grass will continue to grow long on nature reserves and be cut short frequently in parks- thus not showing much attempt at non lethal methods of site management. This unfortunately is the legacy of the previous parks manager in Sandwell.

Having voiced my concern that the issues raised in the petition concerning the council’s groundcare have not been adequately addressed, the new cabinet member replacing Maria Crompton has thankfully agreed to defer the matter being addressed at the committee. At least some progress can be reported here then if Councillor Hossell is prepared to ask officers the questions instead of his predecessor who unfortunately took their words as gospel without scrutiny.

 

 

 

For some time there had been speculation as to what had happened to the architect of the goose culls in Sandwell– senior Parks manager John Satchwell Snr.  It now transpires that he has officially “retired” and is no employed by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council.

But this official line appears to ignore allegations of a very serious nature concerning the sale of council owned property. We are aware that the police spent some time at Jubilee Park in Tipton questioning staff about these allegations shortly before the parks manager went “on the box”, or was it gardening leave? Around the same time, Ex Sandwell Mayor and Great Bridge Councillor Derek Rowley didn’t stand for re-election in the ward. How very coincidental.

Indeed it is also of note that Ex councillor Rowley was also in charge of Maria Crompton’s equivalent department at one stage, but what role did he have to play in any culls I wonder? She has also now lost her cabinet position as Cabinet member for Highways and Environment, in what appears to be the political game of thrones playing out at The Oldbury Kremlin. Indeed it is difficult to see how as head of the parks service area she could possibly have survived , if these investigations show any culpability. We already know she made untruthful statements on Radio WM immediately after the goose culls came to light, and only then after my freedom of information request after Satchwell and others had repeatedly lied.

Regardless of what has exactly transpired here , let’s hope that the rozzers do a proper investigation. The Cooper era at Sandwell council is crumbling before our eyes, and  it is not before time that the rot was cleared out.