From Planning, Highways & Hospitals...

...Good Lord, deliver us.

I seriously wonder if I am turning into Victor Meldrew well ahead of my natural transitioning. There is a possibility that I am become a grumpy old man with a penchant for complaining before I have even reached my fiftieth year. In my defence, the various forms of local government with which I have had to deal would test the patience of the most patient of saints. Indeed, all forms of human government are flawed and serve as reminders as to why, deep down, we long for God’s good rule. Local government, on the other hand, has all the failings of central government but seems to be led by an even baser and less intelligent species of bureaucrat. Let me illustrate.

I have already written about my thwarted attempt to visit a congregant in the Royal Blackburn Hospital. Reception staff demanded a date of birth and postcode before they could locate his ward. I raised an objection with the ‘Customer Relations Team’, for which an apology was hastily issued. When I dug beneath the surface, they said it was actually my fault, and that the hospital ‘felt’ that no further correspondence would be exchanged. I begged to differ, explaining that it was for the complainant to ‘feel’ that the complaint was resolved, not the subject of the complaint.

Near my house, an outbuilding has been erected, the insides of which make noise all night long. I complained to Pendle Borough Council’s Planning Department that no planning permission had been obtained. Its staff replied that they wrote to the proprietor and ‘requested’ he sought permission. He ignored them, so that is now the end of the matter. A more pathetic, toothless form of local government cannot be imagined. Law-abiding citizens pay fees to obtain planning permission and nervously await the outcome, while unscrupulous persons just ignore it, save the fees, and get away with it. When I extended my home two years ago, officers of that same Planning Department were literally on ladders with tape measures, ordering my builder to lower a wall by two inches.

I reported a terrible road repair to Lancashire County Highways Department. This is a width of road which some utility company dug up, but did not bother to match the depth of the replacement tarmac to its surroundings by nearly two inches. In a car, this creates a mildly irritating bump; on a bicycle, one must slow right down or ride on the wrong side of the road in order to avoid it, otherwise risking an accident. An inspector from Highways allegedly the visited site within 48 hours and declared that no further action need be taken. I said I should like to complain: did the inspector go the right spot (there are plenty of other defects on that stretch of tarmac in addition to the one I highlighted)? Who approved this terrible road repair in the first place? Having heard nothing, I phoned up. Mysteriously, the complaint had not been recorded. Now it is, and I await the department's gracious response.

To the management of healthcare, maintaining roads or monitoring building developments, a certain breed of mandarin seems to be attracted. Persons of questionable competence, who lack any willingness to see fault except in others, and an inherent laziness all seem to be combine to form the personality and professional characteristics of a British local government official. This is what happens when a fallen world is managed by fallen creatures: waste, incompetence and dissatisfaction. Notwithstanding the possibility that some of the people who work in these areas try their best and may sometimes do a decent job, I now despise Pendle Planning, Lancashire Highways and East Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. I thank God that in heaven, we shall no longer suffer presidents, prime ministers and civil servants, nor local mandarins with sawdust between the ears. A better government is coming, thank God.