Some of you may have noticed that there are four brick bus shelters missing in Framwellgate Moor and Pity Me. And unfortunately, nothing there in their place.

I was working with officers at the council to find out the cost of replacement, but somewhere down the line at County Hall an instruction to demolish them was made instead – without ordering any new ones.

Now as mess ups go this is a pretty big one, especially for everyone getting wet – including me as I have committed to using the bus more as part of the 10:10 initiative (More info here www.1010uk.org ) and the Pity Me stop is the closest to my house.

After my lengthy discussions with officers, which were partly centred around where is the money coming from to replace these stops, things are now moving forwards. I have been given a commitment that all four shelters will be replaced – and not with small, useless shelters. This will mean that we will have replaced and added a dozen shelters in the last year or two across the five villages.

The bad bit of course is that it witll probably take 6-8 weeks to get these ordered, made and installed, just at the time when the weather is turning awful. I can only apologise on behalf of the council – I guess this is one of the inevitable slip ups we were expecting during the transition to a new unitary council. Time to get out the umbrella and hope it isn’t windy for the next month or so.

At least by then we will have new shelters which don’t smell like a toilet!