Council meeting decends into farce

Tonights Council meeting was called off after the Mayor tried to have the public gallery cleared. The unusual site of more that five people in the public gallery usually means that there is an issue that people are upset about. This time it was the West Hendon regeneration scheme, which appears to have upset quite a few of the residents.

The Mayor obviously wasn't going to take any interruption from the gallery and warned them. Personally I thought she was rather harsh. What state is our democracy in if we can't take a bit of heckling. However after a further interruption she ordered the gallery cleared.

Most of the people left. However two older ladies, neither as far as I could tell involved in the heckling decided that they were not moving. The site of ten police officers trying to persuade them to move was farcical. As one Cllr pointed out, you wouldn't get that many police coming over if your car had been stolen. In the end the Mayor abandoned the meeting. Not the best way to end 2007.