Ever wondered what is the point of West Dorset District Council? Ever wondered whether its top priority is serving the public, or serving itself? Ever wondered how it manages to deliver such abysmal value for money?

When making its decisions, does it firstly entertain a wide variety of viewpoints in open debate, or does it simply rely on the wisdom of a tiny coterie of hand-picked councillors?

Alas, WDDC doesn’t seem to enjoy interacting with those who are obliged to pay for it.

Each year, it holds about sixty council and committee meetings at which members of the public are said, officially, to be welcome.

The meetings are unadvertised. They take place, perhaps to suit councillors and staff rather than anyone else, on weekday after-noons. They are often patchily inaudible. Unsurprisingly, many meetings are attended by not a single member of the public.

The public may ask questions at only four of those meetings. All questions must be submitted in writing several days in advance. Any question deemed potentially embarrassing for the council may be banned on the nebulous, unappealable grounds of being ‘frivolous’; and, yes, this happens. At the meeting itself, once your question and the scripted response have been read out, you have no further right to speak.

And ‘the public are welcome’? Just try the all-powerful exec-utive committee or shared ser-vices joint committee meetings.

The hostility is almost tangible.

Now, imagine this: widely-advertised and well-attended public meetings, held on weekday evenings, well-equipped with microphones so every syllable is clearly audible; a good-natured, inclusive atmosphere; the public encouraged to speak their minds and ask questions, without notice or pre-vetting, about any agenda item; inter-active debate with councillors, before the councillors vote publicly on how to use the local budget; the primary purpose being consensus whenever poss-ible, rather than the engineered imposition of predetermined, doctrinaire decisions.

Pure fantasy? Some faraway utopia? Not really. It’s how Wiltshire Council, a unitary authority, typically conducts its area board meetings, where public participation is actively promoted and genuinely valued.

How strange to see a council that isn’t terrified of its own tax-paying public!

Chris Holmes, Dorchester