Cheshire East Tories’ proudest claim is the ‘transparency’ of their council.

Anyone who has followed the workings of Cheshire East for the past decade will wonder how they came to this conclusion.

Rachel Bailey, leader of CEC, asked me last year what she could do to convince residents of her council’s openness.

I said that councillors regularly attended public meetings appearing to share the views of the community but were often suspected of doing the exact opposite when casting their vote I suggested to Cllr Bailey that a good start in regaining public confidence would be to change the ‘show of hands’ policy in decision-making to a recorded vote, enabling residents to see exactly how their councillor voted.

It’s about as simple a change as anyone could make yet Cllr Bailey was resistant to the prospect and I left wondering why.

The recent proposal by the Independent group to change the current cabinet system to a more open cross-party committee enabling all parties to have an input to the decision-making process was rejected outright by the Tory leadership.

Again, one has to ask why.

CoSocius was a company owned jointly by Cheshire East and Cheshire West Councils providing IT and HR services.

It made a loss of £800,000 in its first year alone, and by the time CEC and CWAC took the services back on in April 2016 the councils were expected to fork out £2.8 million to cover the firm’s sizeable overspend.

As a taxpayer you would obviously want to know how a company financed by you managed to fail after one year with such losses.

Three years is ample time for taxpayers to have that information but it has been decided that the collapse of CoSocius’ should be scrutinised by the next administration following the local election on May 2.

An outcome ensuring that whatever is uncovered will not be revealed to voters before the election if ever.

The meaning of ‘transparency’ according to my dictionary is as follows: An organisation or its activities open to public scrutiny.

I shall leave you to decide the validity of Cheshire Tories’ claim of transparency.

SEAL OF APPROVAL FOR KNUTSFORD BLUEPRINT

The Knutsford Neighbourhood Plan has been backed by more than eight out of 10 residents who took part in the recent referendum.

The culmination of more than four years’ work by Knutsford Town Council, the Neighbourhood Plan now forms part of the development plan and must be used by Cheshire East Council in making planning decisions.

I do not wish to rain on anyone’s parade, far from it, but has anyone spoken to Wilmslow residents who came to believe they their opinions counted for nothing?

Did anyone consult residents of Adlington Road and Browns Lane in Wilmslow whose wishes were trampled asunder or those residing on Fence Avenue Macclesfield whose views on traffic congestion and over development met the same fate?

I wish the good people of Knutsford the very best, I really do, but keep the front page of the Guardian (March 21 edition) pinned to your notice board and read it regularly lest Cheshire East Council chose to ‘overlook’ the views of residents.

MULE JUMPING IS A BIG BUSINESS

I TRAVELLED to Oak Ridge Missouri last week to co-host a gundog workshop. Turned out to be as much an education for me as it was for the dogs.

Oak Ridge (population 232) is about as far from the Trafford Centre as any ‘town centre’ can get consisting primarily of a post office, two diners, a vacant photographic studio and a general store.

My host took me for dinner at a nearby restaurant where gator tail was top of the menu. Another appetiser was a combo of crawdad tails and shrimp washed down with gallons of flat beer.

(Missouri folks like their beer flat enough to serve in envelopes.) Undoubtedly the most amazing man I met was Pauli who was the quintessential Mid West farmer in his denim dungarees, bushy beard and battered baseball cap.

Pauli showed me dozens of photos of his ancient tractors but was astounded to discover I knew absolutely nothing about mule jumping, a sport akin to Premiership football in the county towns of Missouri.

With great enthusiasm Pauli took it upon himself to rectify this omission in my education.

Mule jumping is basically a high jump event for these sure-footed pack animals where the bar is lifted until only the winning mule is left in the competition.

Pauli was very proud of his standing among the mule jumping fraternity and I was very proud to have met him.

I was then introduced to everyone in the diner and I can honestly say I never met so many genuinely interesting people in my life.

It’s not often you get to meet a bank manager and a mule jumping champion at the same table.

I loved those guys.

Yee Haw!