It's the Council's fault. Lack of Police Housing

 

The County Council, in conjunction with its Committees, have got into a bit of a muddle over the provision of housing accommodation for policemen.

It is, apparently, a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, for it now appears that the committee specially appointed for the matter of providing accommodation for HCC employees, and who have been conferring with the local authorities as to the requirements in the various districts, have largely been wasting their own time and that of the District Council representatives who had met them.  The Standing Joint Committee, the authority responsible for the maintenance of the police force in the County, have obviously been at work at the same time but with less publicity and, to general surprise, and without waiting for the Special Committee’s report, have come forward with a large scheme for the purchase of sites in specified areas on which to erect cottages for policemen.

The Standing Joint Committee are an autonomous body possessed of plenary powers in any question affecting the police, and the HCC had no option but to accept their proposal and so override the Special Committee.  Hence, following penetrative criticism, everybody knows precisely where sites are needed, it has been published from the rooftops, and a sudden advance in the price of land in the villages named may be confidently anticipated.

It is a curious way of transacting public business, and scarcely redounds to the credit of those responsible for it.  The matter is not urgent and, out of courtesy to the Special Committee, it might at least have waited until their Report was ready !