Madam,

I read with interest your paper’s account of the recent special meeting of the Healthier Communities Scrutiny Committee, ‘Food inspection backlog dealt with by contractors’.

I was especially drawn to the comments of Cllr Odwyn Davies, a man who less than 12 months ago traduced the facilities at the former Bodlondeb home in Aberystwyth before voting to recommend its closure.

Cllr Davies, despite having been provided with documentary evidence by me to the contrary 48 hours earlier, told the scrutiny committee at that time that he considered Bodlondeb, in his own opinion, to be inaccessible to fire appliances.

He also remarked, at length, that the population of Ceredigion now needing care had grown up in an era of dirt floors and outside facilities. As such, in Cllr Davies’s opinion, they deserved more luxury than Bodlondeb was able to afford.

Now it seems Cllr Davies is content to return to an age where food handling and storage was less effective than now. From my own youth, a time before refrigerators were in virtually every home, I am familiar with the saying ‘We all eat a little bit of dirt before we die’ but I actually haven’t heard it said for some years.

Sincere thanks to Cllr Mark Strong for identifying that Aberystwyth has a serious rat problem.

Also, with reference to the article ‘Error sees 50 confidential reports made public on council website’. We are yet to see or hear any meaningful signs of contrition on what has been a monumental failing on Ceredigion council’s part.

If, as it seems to be, it is a repetition of the mistake which came to light in 2007, then this makes things so much the worse. When individuals submit personal, sometimes medical, information to the county council, the issue of confidentiality is implicit. In this particular situation it appears that the county council has failed to uphold its side of the bargain on not one but two occasions.

It behoves the county council to submit to an external investigation as to how the breach of confidentiality occurred in 2007 and how it was allowed to happen again in 2018.

It may be that the time for self-regulation by the county council, in the eyes of many, has passed.

All we have so far heard is that “the council apologises and is taking steps to ensure it does not happen again” and “the reports have now been removed”.

To whom exactly has it apologised? To the people affected? I think that many people would be happier knowing precisely what steps it is taking and that the county council can claim with total confidence that the material has been completely removed, in its entirety, from the internet.

Yours etc,

George Holloway, Rhoshendre, Waunfawr, Aberystwyth.

Have your say on the local issues affecting you - email [email protected] or join in the conversation on our Facebook page