Barlow - The voice of (un)reason?

I know a couple of the readers of this blog are big Vic Barlow fans, and some even consider him to be the "voice of reason". (!)

But sometimes I wonder if he just jots down a few sentences before the print deadline without giving any thought or consideration to the content. My supposition is that some of his views are not very reasoned at all.

This is a great example from last weeks Macclesfield Express.

He doesn't get off to a good start with this:

"God knows what they talk about at council meetings?"

This, as regular readers will know, is like a red rag to a bull for me.

As meetings are minuted and open to the public, then he could find out if he wanted to. In fact, I've not seen a single professional journalist from the Maccelsfield Express (I assume he does receive a pay cheque? He may do it for the free doggie advertising...) at any of our meetings, so it's no surprise that they're in the dark when it comes to what was discussed.

Perhaps it's for this reason Vic isn't aware that Cheshire East is investing £330,000 to boost the local economy. Hardly what I'd call dragging my feet, but I suppose writing about that wouldn't be quite so pithy.

He complains about the roadworks - and whilst his literary illustrations are entertaining they're not quite true. We do have a lot of roadworks going on at the moment, but they're hardly choking the town centre. I also believe he knows full well that to prevent these roadworks would need a change in national policy that Cheshire East can't implement.

But in truth, it's the final comment which got me.

I’d expect to see sparks flying over the current state of our town centres.

His essentially suggestion is that none of us are voicing our concerns over the town centre - especially the transport / parking issue.

This is so untrue and uninformed that it's offensive. I appreciate that he may not know what every councillor is doing, but most people are aware of what I am working on because of this blog, twitter, and regular coverage I get in the paper he writes in.

Chamber of trade, local loyalty schemes, parking, art in shop windows, markets and litter. It's all been in there - and that's before we get onto the Town Centre redevelopment which has serious implications in the FOI act also. It's not just been "sparks" either - I've manged to create fire on several issues, although I accept that in the public sector it's rather slow burning.

So come on Vic, keep up with the times will you? Why don't you get yourself on Twitter and then you can keep yourself more up to date.