Recession is something not reflected in the age of council owned vehicles

Nov 26 2009 West Lothian Courier

THE Courier edition of November 19 reported that West Lothian Council will have £50 million less to spend over the next four years and that they intend to consult the public over what their spending priorities should be.

I would suggest that any posts within the council that did not exist before New Labour came to power could happily be dispensed with as an initial cost saving exercise.

On the subject of financial difficulties, there’s actually an article in the latest issue of the council’s free newspaper in which council leader Peter Johnston is quoted as saying “there is a lot of doom and gloom surrounding public sector finances at the moment.

“All public sector bodies are facing a very difficult financial future”.

When I read the above quote, I thought this guy must have been having a laugh.

I realise that with unemployment now at a level unseen in this area for many years, more than a few people, at least those not on the council’s payroll, may have too many other things on their minds to have noticed that almost every white painted vehicle, ranging from car derived vans through to small trucks and mini-buses owned by our local council now bears a registration plate which indicates that it is less than a year old.

I worked for a period for a company that had quite a sizeable fleet of vehicles.

It was company policy that vehicles were replaced once they had covered 100,000 miles.

This, or something similar, is presumably common practice.

If our local council has a similar policy, is it really possible that a huge proportion of the council’s fleet became eligible for replacement almost simultaneously.

It’s hard to believe that the council really is facing a bleak financial future when I see so many new vehicles belonging to them on the road.

Clearly an enormous sum of money has been spent within the past year. Anyone prepared to disclose just how much? Nope. Thought that would be the case.

From my own observations, it appears in any case, that almost without exception, the council vehicle fleet is very young. Perhaps vehicles don’t last long with our council.

When I had a company vehicle, it was stressed that I had to arrange to have it serviced at the appropriate intervals.

I actually have in my possession a drivers defect logbook from a council vehicle.

This was found thrown away in the countryside, something that would have rendered a non-council employee liable to fine for litter.

Anyway this book reveals that although the vehicle to which it applied was due to be serviced, as indicated by a warning light in the instrument panel, it was actually driven for over 1100 further miles before any action was taken.

Of course, why bother taking care of a vehicle when there is an unlimited amount of taxpayer’s money available to provide a replacement if it is damaged.

That’s presumably also the reason why council owned vehicles do not slow down when approaching or passing over the numerous speed humps in this area.

Whenever I see one of these many new vehicles I think, recession. Public sector financial pressure.

Yes someone is definitely having a laugh.

Name and address supplied.