Opinion

Not only was the plan for a parasol and planters outside the Pepper & Oz restaurant in Abbey Road refused on Wednesday night, but it happened amidst scenes of farce and angry words.

A twice taken vote, with the decision changing from approval to refusal, led one person to walk out of the meeting and another to go home to pen an angry letter to the Gazette that night.

It was the first time Andy Walker, of Madresfield Road, had been to a council meeting.

"If this was an example of democracy in action, please bring in a Stalinist district council," he wrote.

When councillors want members of the public to take more interest in the democratic process, and they make the effort to attend a meeting, they must do everything they can to ensure what is going on is clear. That was obviously not the case on Wednesday night.

On the plus side, the council has immediately put into effect its election pledge to re-open closed public toilets, which has proved to be nothing like as difficult, or indeed as expensive, as the previous Liberal Democrat administration would have had us believe.

So sadly for Adrian Ward and a number of other letter writers this week (we couldn't print all of them), we cannot report, as we would have liked, an end to the past negative strategy. Let's hope it's a blip.