A battle funded by unsuspecting tax payers… another land grab?

From the Daily Telegraph

The Americans say “You can’t fight City Hall”. When you take on your council, Big Bureaucracy always wins because it is not a fair game.

Not only do they set the rules, they are the referee as well.

In central governments, the average worker is a nobody. Managers might have influence in their own departments, but not in others. In local government, people are more interconnected. This makes the problem worse. You could appeal to your elected representatives, but they are more likely to know the key people, work with them regularly, and need them in the future. You will be sacrificed for the ongoing relationship.

It is a world-wide issue. Here is a typical example from New Zealand, that has all the hallmarks of a classic battle with incompetence, cover-ups, outright lies and legal bullying funded by the deep pockets of unsuspecting taxpayers. “David” is Murray and Margaret Shaw, while “Goliath” is the Hamilton City Council.

The Shaws are retired, and have devoted a couple of decades to creating a beautiful nature sanctuary on the outskirts of the city. There are ponds, trees and an abundance of native birds, safe from the city where pet cats often kill chicks, and street lights dazzle the owls at night.

The council has spent the same couple of decades planning suburban growth to devour the surrounding land. Thousands of pages of reports and studies gathered dust on shelves as the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly. But a sudden offer in 2017 of $280m in government funding changed that. The politicians needed target dates for each stage (unsurprisingly connected to election timetables), so City Hall was under time pressure to deliver.

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