Briefing Notes no.16 - 31st. Jan 2012 

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Briefing Notes has just released the following statement and press release.

Briefing Notes can exclusively reveal the response to the MIR consultation has broken through the 1500 mark.
In terms of numbers responding, this has been ERC's biggest ever response.
ERC will try to bill this as the most successful consultation ever.
Briefing Notes takes exception to any such claim.

The reasons for the high response has been in part due to all the following:-
1. Briefing Notes has issued SIX BNs on the MIR since November.
2. BN subscribers have been actively knocking on doors and generally getting the message out.
3. ERNHW has also been a big help in encouraging the debate.
4. ERNHW subscribers have also been spreading the word.
5. The Conservative Councillors have been very active on the ground distributing leaflets in the most affected areas.

By contrast ERC failed to even put the consultation in their ER magazine published during the consultation.
The knowledge of the MIR's existence is still pathetically low.
Briefing Notes calls on ERC to urgently review their procedures for making residents aware of such consultations existence in the future AND publish within 28 days how that will be achieved.

More info will be contained in the forthcoming Briefing Notes 16 with further action.

Firstly a huge thank you and well done to all of you who responded and help spread the word about the MIR.

Further, Councillor Jim Swift published the following in response to those Councillors and candidates for the May Election who claimed they were barred from answering those questions posed by BN in our attempt to obtain a simpler form of guidance from our elected leaders.

It is the view of Briefing Notes that this consultation has been a complete sham. Note our deliberate use of the word 'sham' rather than 'farce.' It smacks of premeditated wilfulness, of a desire to slip this through under everyone's radar screen. In recent weeks the only way to find the MIR on ERC's website has been to do a search for it.  You can only search for something if you know it is there in the first place! That most certainly is not open and transparent nor is it easily accessable. The failure to make any mention of it in their very own ER magazine can only be seen as a most serious negligent failure.

This MIR potentially is a game changer for all communities within ER and beyond, due to the additional traffic the MIR proposals would generate even upon Glasgow's main road networks. Only in the closing days of the consultation has the ERC PR machine cranked into action and then knowingly spread misinformation and sought to attack those of us trying our best to spread the warnings of the MIR and its implications. Where was the PR dept. during Oct/Nov/Dec and most of January? Asleep at the wheel you might think. In fact it was only when certain Councillors started being exposed for spreading wrong information, that it tried, and failed miserably, to leap into action to extricate those Cllrs. from the consequences of their own folly.

BN will now revert to those Cllrs. who failed to reply or who wrongly claimed to be prevented from replying. We will afford them a further opportunity to reply and to those who gave erroneous excuses for not replying, we will afford them the opportunity to apologise to you and belatedly explain their individual positions. Either they were ignorant of the rules governing the job or they deliberately sought to mislead. We and nine of the twenty Cllrs. along with 50% of the candidates, knew and correctly understood the rules. Why did they not understand them nor did they seek guidance on this basic point? We will report back to you as normal with both our questions to them and their responses, or note their failures to respond. We are entitled to answers and those who failed to provide them will be pursued to explain why.