Tomorrow the Labour  Cabinet at County Hall will agree to press ahead with a tendering exercise for subsidised bus services across the County.

The £3.3m contracts have never been shown to councillors. We have never had the opportunity to comment or put forward recommendations. Councillors should have been able to ask about conditions relating to quality and punctuality of bus services for these subsidised routes. It is completely unaccceptable when more than 10% of all bus services in the county are arriving late, not to have proper conditions in place to penalise the worst offending companies.

Over two years ago councillors were promised that when important contracts are being set up for council services that we would get some input. This followed on from past mistakes with procurement. Once again we don’t get a look in. Democracy is dead in County Durham until such time as Labour loses control of DCC.

On the subject of procurement – if anyone in the wider county has received their new recycling bin, please let me know if you think the quality is to the same standard as your general or garden waste bin.

Someone has told me that the new bins are poor quality, which is surprising given all the bad press about the award of the contract..