For the last two years or more I have been pushing the Labour Run Durham County Council to do what most other authorities do and allow advertising on the public highway.

Not American style twenty foot high boards, just small scale adverts on roundabouts paid for by for example local garden centres, with nice flower displays. Instead, they have spent two years arguing amongst themselves about the legalities of it all.

I could have had the flower displays in Pity Me paid for completely by a local nursery in return for a small advert on the roundabouts but DCC said no. In the end Pity Me Nurseries did the work for below cost – big thanks, stirling job – and hopefully, this week at the fifth time of asking DCC will honour its agreement to weed the displays.

Anyway, the point here is not about flowers, rather about the huge amount of money the council could be saving through allowing this advertising. By now they could have saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet another example of a go slow council wasting our money.

Last year I was told a report would be forthcoming on this. Today I get told it is on its way. Why with 20,000 employees does it take DCC so long to do sensible things recommended by the public or Councillors, or even by its own officers, perhaps it is because it is incompetently run by the Labour Party.