For weeks now, the Cambrian News has been reporting on a series of failures at local government level in Ceredigion — all stemming from complaints received by this newspaper from visitors who were shocked by the dirty state of Aberystwyth.

They certainly touched a nerve. So have we.

Ceredigion County Council told us it had no money to fix the broken bits, so we had all better get used to living with things the way they are.

Then there was the extraordinary intervention by Cllr Carl Worrall, voted in as county councillor for Penparcau in May and showing more testicular fortitude than most of his colleagues on the county council, who said that if he wants to deal with staff at the council, he has to do so via email.

While Ceredigion was saying it had no money, it had found £600,000 to buy a car park in Cardigan and — here’s the rub — the first thing councillors knew about the purchase was when they read it in this newspaper.

If this entire saga isn’t sad enough, it took four weeks for the mayor of Aberystwyth, Talat Chaudhri, to respond to the Cambrian News.

He said our emails went straight to his email spam folder. That may very well be the case, but it certainly indicates that he isn’t exactly tuned in to the pulse of the town he represents, isn’t in touch with the majority of its residents, and seems to be living in a bubble to the extent that he didn’t see — nor hear — a word of the furore blowing up around him in print, in the streets and on social media.

Why did he not know that, four weeks earlier, his deputy had spoken extensively to us?

When he did address the state of dirty old Aberystwyth as we were reporting for weeks, he laid the blame squarely on Ceredigion County Council.

This newspaper will not cease and desist, nor will we shy from our duty to shine a light in the dirtiest corners.

We will not be deterred from taking Ceredigion County Council and others to task. We do so because the majority of our public representatives — save Cllr Worrall who speaks on the record, and the few adults in the room in Aberaeron that keep us quietly informed — are failing the people of this county.

Elections were held six months ago. We would have hoped that things might have improved. They have not.

The people of Ceredigion — all of us who pay the bills and high wages—deserve better.

Dirty old town? It’s time for deep cleansing.