And so the desecration of an important site within ‘historic Dorchester’ will begin on Monday, June 6, against the wishes of the vast majority of Dorchester citizens.

They have, on a number of different occasions over the past year, clearly expressed their disapproval of this element of the Charles Street development.

The creation of a massive, lacklustre, vainglorious new office for West Dorset District Council (and totally unnecessary new Dorset County Council library for the town) will serve to remind residents and visitors for years to come of the follies and failings of our current withered version of local democracy.

That currently much-vaunted word ‘localism’ has a truly hollow ring to it in the county town.

In the recent district council elections rather more votes were cast for those candidates clearly and openly opposed to this project (about 33,000) than for those who, since they declined to answer the simple question put to them in the SCON (Stop Council Offices Now) candidate survey, we had to assume were in favour of it (about 29,000).

This particularly simplistic view of the election result is not reflected in the current make-up of the district council but, as a measure of local views on an issue of great importance and with huge financial implications, should be borne in mind by those in positions of power and responsibility. Since my election to the district council last month, on a clear promise to do all in my power to stop this wilful misuse of precious public money, everything that I’d heard about the manner in which this tier of local government has chosen to run itself has been demonstrated to be true.

The adoption by WDDC of cabinet-style governance means in effect that just seven councillors, all drawn from the majority party and hand-picked by the leader of that party, make all the major decisions during their four-year term.

There appears to me to be a complete lack of debate on issues of great concern to the people of West Dorset; this results in the imposition of schemes with little or no opportunity for input from the remaining 41 elected members.

With the best will in the world no one ‘party’ has a monopoly on good ideas and knows what is best for the communities they serve.

The need for open debate on issues and policies is crucial to achieve good governance and to reflect the varied views of any given electorate.

I have yet to assess the effectiveness of any existing committees that might serve as checks and balances to the power of the seven-strong executive, but I get the feeling that it is extraordinarily difficult to voice opinions that are contrary to those of the one-party executive.

SCON invites those of your readers who believe the office element of the Charles Street project to be wrong to stand quietly outside the back of the United Church at 11am on Monday to express their disapproval.

Alistair Chisholm, Friary Hill, Dorchester