When I first moved back to St Albans the local paper, the Herts Advertiser ran a letter from one of the governors of my old school.
The council wanted to relocate the fire station to part of its playing fields and the letter said that a councillor had told the governor that the school would have to cave in or the council would compulsory purchase (CPO) the site for a 10th of its real value.
This was a lie. The rules of CPO are that an open market value must be paid. The Herts Ad - which is well capable of spinning a news story out of a letter - did not think this lie worthy of a story, probably because these days local hacks lack the expertise to spot something like that. I did toy with the idea of phoning the paper, but had many, many other things on my mind.
The new fire station is now under construction. Local governance: can't beat it.
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