Apologists?

There's usually a minor surprise at each of our town councils. And so there was at yesterday's. 

Flashback to late August

I got the impression that councillors were bending over backwards to make apologies for the traveller encampment that appeared over the late summer bank holiday weekend. 

A couple of town councillors noted that Denbighshire was the only council in Wales not to make statutory provision for travellers. Little wonder, then, that they just turned up here. One felt that the travellers were not a 'problem' but an 'issue'. 'It is our issue to solve'. But, what is the difference between a problem and an issue? The implication was that a problem was a bad thing but an issue was something that can be made right. (I thought the two were synonyms.)

It took two county councillors to remind the town council that Denbighshire had actually gotten close to finding a site but, after a campaign, this was quashed. It was Huw Hilditch-Roberts who said, bluntly, 'Everyone wants a permanent site but nobody wants it in their back yard'. 

Would the town councillors' views be any different were the county's chosen permanent site to be in Rhuthun/Ruthin? 

Meanwhile, a number of travellers' vehicles were, according to the UK government, out of car tax: