Council to review blog service nobody is using
Wednesday 19th May 2010, 11:19AM BST.
A Shropshire town council blog which was set up for residents to communicate with councillors has only had one post in more than a year. Now its future use is set to be reviewed.
The post created in April last year on www.bctowncouncil.blogspot.com asks whether there should be more parking restrictions in Bishop’s Castle.
But as of this morning there had only been three comments in response. Now Bishop’s Castle Town Council is to look at its future.
Town clerk Diane Malley said: “Since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a chance to promote it. It could be something we could promote more for our newsletter.”
Mrs Malley fully took on the clerk post in February and said prior to that the council had been covered by a temporary clerk.
She said: “The whole purpose of the blog is for residents to post on it but I think what they tend to do is e-mail me. We would investigate first, rather than taking it down. If it transpired that people weren’t aware of it and wanted to use it, we wouldn’t take it down.”
Mrs Malley said the blog had originally been set up by Councillor Jane Carroll.
She could not be contacted for comment today.
Mayor Councillor Keith Pinches said: “It’s sad that it isn’t used, we have tried in the past to get people to use it.”
On the town’s home page www.bishopscastle.co.uk a note says: “The town council are trialling a blog to allow us to post questions and express views – the blog is moderated so you won’t see your posts appear immediately.”
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I’m just surprised that there are three people in Bishop’s castle with access to the internet…..
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A tad personal & predictably sweeping statement from THAT end of the County.
What’s the unemployment rate in Telford ?
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Now, now boys. Play nicely :)
I would think that, knowing how much our local parish council website is used, the problem is more likely to be that people don’t know that it is there.
More marketing, I think, is the answer!
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It’s a blog… You have to post things for people to respond to. If you don’t publish things, people don’t respond.
It’s a free service so it’s such a non-story.
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Rob of Telford is such a wit. Or is that only half the story?
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I’ll take that as a compliment, seeing as it’s from a master debater such as yourself!!
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typcial of a council to waste money
bring on the cameron revolution we can privatise the lot of them and scrap this wastefulness
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It’s free to run a blog. They haven’t wasted any money. You could argue that there would be time wasted (and therefore money) if they updated it regularly but they haven’t.
So. There.
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this is typical of wasteful labour spending on IT projects, no to id cards, no to it in the NHS, no to rural broadband, lets cut taxes now and get away from this over reliance of computers to do everything
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Love all the knee jerk waste of money comments. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell them that it didn’t cost anything, they cannot grasp it.
Conservative voter, how is a free blog account typical of wasteful spending on IT projects? Isn’t your comment in fact demonstrative of the blinkered approach to politics that this country suffers from. Anything Party A does is wrong whereas everything Party B does is right. Use your brain and make yourself aware of all the facts before commencing your rant.
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this is typical shropshire council, wasting my money on beurocratic none projects
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OMG can people not read in this country!!!
READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU COMMENT!!!
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Online blogs cost nothing… only thing wasted here is time. Funny how Tory Voter bemoans the fact that its a waste of “labour” spending, yet has not grasped the fact that his local (assuming he is in Shrewsbury) Mp Daniel Kawczynski spent some £1400 on his website, its in the domain “they work for you” and claimed it on expenses and having looked it it seems he(we) have been ripped off.
Oh i am pretty sure Bishops Castle is far removed from a labour council infact its a ruling Tory shropshire Council
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