Lets' talk Rats.......

NO not that one...I know what some people may think this blog post is about but no stop it :-)

Recently a video has been doing the rounds on the Internet whereby  a family were living in a Council house in Leigh but it was infested with Rats and Mice. After months of trying to get the Council to sort the problem the family had had enough and put a video online showing the problem and asking Independent Cllr Paul Maiden and Bob Brierley to help.

They started increasing the traffic and more so got in touch with the Council after they spoke and visited the family. After the video from the family went viral the Council said they would help. At last!

So they said they would put the family up in a Hotel over night. OK Thanks. But the simplest things cannot be organised by Wigan Council. The family of 5 said were told a taxi would be picking them up by the Council. And the Council did get a taxi to pick them up, for a four people when there was 5 of them. Let's put it down to an admin error. So Independent Cllr Bob Brierley gave a lift to one of the family as there was not enough room in the taxi. They get to the Hotel and the Council had organised a room for them. Only thing was it was for a family of 3. (Keeps going down).

For me it demonstrates that very simple things cannot be orgainsused by the Council and they want us to believe they can do more complicated things? Fair play to the great work that Independent Cllr Paul Maiden and Bob Brierley carried out to support the family but it should never have come to this situation. The Council should have helped and supported the family a lot sooner and they only stepped in because they were shamed too.

I have also seen a newspaper article where the Council say the problem of the rats where the fault of the family and not the Council. ( Wigan Council don't blame us it's someone else's fault). The truth was the property was not fit for living in and the drains had broken along with other maintenance issue. The unanswered question is - how many other Council properties are not fit to live in?

Video here