For the upcoming local elections, ELDC, in their wisdom, have decided to move the Polling Station previously located at the Welcome Inn to the Southview Hotel. Thoroughly ridiculous.
There have been problems with the Welcome being a Polling Station due to the access provided for the disabled, which has been the subject of complaints to ELDC. So they have decided not to use The Welcome. This is fair enough but why on earth move it to the Southview Hotel? This location is only just within the town boundary and is more than two miles from some of the houses that fall into the area of St. Clements Ward that need to use it and is convenient to none. This flies in the face of ELDC's green policy about reducing CO2 emissions by forcing people to go out there.
How on earth do they expect the elderly, the disabled and those without transport to get there? Are they expecting them to walk? Would you?
At a time when the number of people going out to vote is falling this really is ridiculous and is offering no encouragement for people to turn out to cast their votes. Indeed I would go further than that and suggest that it is actually hindering them from doing so.
I have tried to contact ELDC about this but as yet have had no reply from them. I do believe that this is a fiat accompli and that nothing that is said is going to change their mind. Having said that I would encourage anybody that is going to be affected by this change of location to contact ELDC on 01507 601111 to voice your displeasure.
At the moment I am looking into having some transport provided up to Southview to try and alleviate this poor situation for all voters and I will be posting on this again when I have more news.
In the meantime let ELDC know what you think of this ridiculous decision.
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