Can you hear me, mother?

According to the Royal National Institution for Deaf People, there are 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK ... about 14 per-cent of the population - or four and a half Boston Borough councillors.
This is why we raised an eyebrow when we saw the item on last night's full council agenda to blow £28,000 on a sound system.
According to the report, "several" members of the council have hearing difficulties which are exacerbated by the acoustics of the rooms used for meetings in the Municipal Buildings, which result in them being unable to hear debates and therefore excluded from the democratic decision making process.
That's interesting in itself, because until now we thought that some councillors were excluded from the democratic decision making process simply because the ruling Bypass Independents group wanted it that way!
Apparently this exclusion also applies to members of the public who attend meetings and cannot clearly hear what is being said, which apparently does not encourage civic participation or fit with the council’s equalities agenda and associated responsibilities as - under the Disability Discrimination Act the Council has to make reasonable provision for people with disabilities, including hearing difficulties.
Looking at the photos of our councillors it's difficult to work out who might have hearing problems - although deciding which of them use hair colouring (not just the ladies!) is an easier matter.
On balance, we would have thought that there were fewer hearing impaired councillors in the present intake than there were in the previous administration which was notable for members who appeared to be in their dotage.

Even so, they managed to get through meetings without mechanical aids.
But if the council membership with impaired hearing mirrors the national statistics, then we are being asked to pay around £7,000 per councillor to provide a facility for them.
This assumes that all four and a half councillors attend the same meetings, which is unlikely except when the full council meets.
And, frankly, with so few councillors, couldn't they just sit nearer the front, when they could hear the proceedings.
Or why does the council not have induction loops installed in major meeting rooms if its duty to the disabled is suddenly so urgent.
We suspect that a small but influential number of members has started this debate, and are being pandered to.
If a room has poor acoustics, it should almost always be possible to rearrange the layout to overcome the problem.
Certainly, we find it hard to believe that so many members of the public attend council meetings, or that the problem is as bad as is suggested - except perhaps at occasional meetings of the Planning Committee when major issues are under debate.
We find the idea of spending so much money on a problem that can probably be solved for a fraction of the cost to be a monstrous waste of cash.
But we expect our argument will fall on deaf ears.

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