Friday, July 29, 2011

Common sense prevails – with a nudge from Mike

Well what do you know, it seems a mistake has been made by RCT Council, their arm’s length consultancy company Capita Symonds,  and their ‘preferred contractors’ for just about everything Costain.
The multi million pound makeover of the centre of Pontypridd town run into a slight problem a few weeks ago when a 25mm kerb was installed along a section of Mill Street which quickly became a hazard with a number of falls being reported. 
Trallwn’s Welsh Liberal Democrat Councillor Mike Powell took up the case with Group Director George Jones who argued that disability groups had been consulted.  We did some checking of our own with representatives of Scope and the Guide Dogs association who came to the conclusion that these kerbs were benefiting nobody.
A press release was sent to the Pontypridd Observer and placed on our website on 17th July.  When it failed to appear we sent it again the following week.
In this week’s issue there was a report on the matter - which somehow failed to incorporate any comment from Mike at all (strangely a lot of our press releases seem to be ignored).
Today there appeared a press release on RCT Council website saying that
“This is a case where all the principles of good project management and design were followed including effective stakeholder consultation, but unfortunately the intended outcome was not as expected. As it happens the design can be amended to remove the up-stand without too much disruption and we can learn from the experience in terms of the design for the remainder of the town centre.”
In other words, somebody messed up.  Still at least they are learning lessons!!!
Mike is awaiting a response from the Director as to who made the decisions, who exactly they consulted, and who is going to pick up the tab for the extra work.  He’s not holding his breath,

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