COVID-19 curbs are rapidly being dismantled, and Wales is at alert level zero, the lowest rung for pandemic-related regulations.

From this week, children won’t have to wear face-coverings in class, and the law on masks in most public places will be relaxed. If infections data continues to improve, pandemic rules could be scrapped entirely within weeks.

So it seemed a good time to inquire about the outlook for Ceredigion’s Gold Command regime. That’s the one which gives senior county council officials sole control over Covid decision-making, and has caused a frequent raising of eyebrows over the consequent loss of democratic accountability.

My question to council leader Ellen ap Gwynn couldn’t have been simpler. Would the temporary delegated powers she granted in early 2020 to the chief executive, and officials in the “leadership group”, to make decisions over the council’s response to Covid-19 matters be discontinued when, as expected, the Welsh government lifted all remaining Covid restrictions by the end of March, or indeed before then given that Wales is at alert level zero.

Her reply, and note the exclamation marks, which infer this is a silly question: “That came to an end in August 2021! As you have been informed previously!”

Er, well, no - I haven’t actually been told this before.

So I ask her: “If the temporary delegated powers arrangement ended in August 2021, why, according to published council records, were a total of 117 “Gold Command decisions” taken between 1 September and 31 December 2021? The council’s own record thus contradicts what you’re saying.”

Ellen is now, I sense, getting a bit ratty. “After many explanations,” she rasps, “you still haven’t understood that under civil contingencies legislation, operational decision are taken by officers when they relate to emergency actions.” No, I do indeed understand that. She chunters on awhile but, finally, we do geta direct answer.

She tells me: “When the Welsh government declare that the pandemic is finally over in Wales, then the Act will no longer be in operation for Covid-related matters.”

At which point, we may reasonably conclude, we’ll be bidding a final farewell to Gold Command. An arrangement which saw council officials make a very significant contribution towards establishing Ceredigion as the safest county in Wales, but one which certainly outstayed its welcome.

APART FROM the obvious, what’s the difference between 10 minutes and 20?

Ask Ceredigion council, and they’ll tell you the lower number ensures stability of the societal tectonic plates underpinning civilised life in the county, while the latter guarantees their dangerous dislocation.

Not that shopkeeper Frank Bridle knew about any of that when, on 24 January, he parked his van in a loading bay outside Barclays Bank, Aberystwyth, in order to pick up some light-bulbs and catalogues from his furniture shop round the corner in Portland Road.

How indeed could he have had the faintest idea that, in 20 minutes, he could have inflicted more damage on local society than Covid did in two years? For that is the inference that can be drawn from the council’s highly dogmatic approach to the claimed parking restriction that ensnared Mr Bridle.

Frank had actually taken time to read the regulations on a kerbside sign: goods vehicles were free to load between 8am and 1pm, but mustn’t stay for more than an hour.

He picked up his bulbs and books and was back with his van within 20 minutes. By which time he’d got a parking ticket. He says a traffic warden told him it was because he hadn’t been seen to be loading within the preceding 10 minutes.

But a “livid” Frank protested: “My grievance is that nowhere on the sign does it say they have to observe you loading for 10 minutes.”

The council, however, knows that, as enforcer, it doesn’t need to explain why it does not see fit to explain why no-one but the council knows anything about this 10-minute regulation. It makes the rules, it’s for us - the plebs - to do as we’re told. Even if we’re not told what it is we mustn’t do. That way, life is so much simpler.

Simpler perhaps, but riskier for everyone, including the authors of the regulation no-one knew existed.

The council doesn’t say so, but it trembles inwardly whenever it reminds itself that it alone possesses the Ancient Knowledge that sets out the dire societal consequences - too dreadful for me to reveal in print - when the loading of vans does not always proceed at a steady pace over a span of at least 10 minutes.

So, it was in the hope of infiltrating the council’s sphere of special wisdom that I unearthed the document at the heart of the discomfort of Frank Bridle.

The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 Traffic Management Act 2004; Ceredigion County Council (prohibition and restriction of waiting and loading and unloading) (consolidation) Order 2012 wouldn’t claim to be a rollicking tale, even assuming you manage to get past the title. But there’s a problem. Speed-reading its 8,126 words, I could find no reference to the elusive 10-minute rule.

This shows perhaps that the best secrets are the ones never written down.