A pity if commendable community plan came to nothing

Mr Van Davy is drawing the long bow a bit in his ambitions for the Council's Strategic Plan ("Open letter sent to Central Coast Council", PN edition 436, Jan 15).

For instance, it is expecting a lot that a Council that cannot even fix potholes would be able to exercise control over "legal wage rate payments and non-sexist, non-discriminatory work practices throughout the Central Coast", to mention just one item in the Community Plan Central Coast's (CCPC) list of goals.

I think that the CPCC might be better advised to limit its concerns to the main issues that galvanise local attention: housing, infrastructure, transportation, environment and not diffuse its efforts over so broad a plane that it is ineffective at all points.

It was my criticism of the original CPCC manifesto that it incorporated too many issues of widely diversified importance and failed to arrange them in a coherent understandable framework that demonstrated the connection between them.

It would be a pity if an effort so commendable should come to nothing because it opens up too many avenues of criticism and fails to focus on the politically possible.

Email, 16 Jan 2018

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy.