In Lija a few weeks ago, a no-entry sign was put up in a very short stretch of street leading to a narrow entry into the road leading to the President’s kitchen garden in Attard.In doing this, the council, whichhad to have the approval of theTransport Authority, created unnecessary inconvenience.

Far worse than this, it also created a danger spot as, to reach the narrow entry, drivers had first to go round the block and then make a sharp left turn, heading straight on to people coming up on foot.

Protests eventually led to the council removing the no-entry sign.

It was quite a small local affair, but represented just one example of the unthoughtful, illogical moves made by councils probably to please a few residents but which irk quite a lot more people. In some places councils appear all too eager to create obstacles rather than making people’s lives easier. They often do this unwittingly but this does not reduce the frustration they create.

The craze for the installation of sleeping policemen, for example, is still on. In some places these are so high that they could easily cause damage to cars if one goes over them even at normal speed.

Besides taking care of the big things, local councils have to be responsive to people’s immediate needs and concerns. And theiraction has to be dictated by common sense, by what is logical, not by the whims of the few when these go against the interests of a larger number of people.

Aligning local councils more closely to the needs of the community is one of the many valid points raised by the president of the Local Councils’ Association, Marc Sant, when, writing in this newspaper a fewdays ago, he discussed the future of local councils.

The association has appointed a working group to draw up a blueprint for future action, a move that comes shortly after the Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said in Parliament that the local enforcement system is to be reformed by the end of the year.

The aim, he said, was to make it fairer, more effective and enforceable. He was speaking in a debate during the second reading of a bill amending the Local Councils Act to give 16-year-olds the vote in local council elections.

The need for the reform is long overdue, but there are many other matters that have to be seen toif local councils are to be put onfirmer ground.

The first issue is whether such a tiny island needs so many localcouncils, 68, plus 16 administrative committees. According to Mr Sant, some of these administrative committees are bigger than some localcouncils. Clearly, there is just toomuch fragmentation.

Malta has increasingly become over-governed. Added to the very large size of the Cabinet, the island has a string of corporations and an ever-growing number of quangos. Administratively speaking, the island is bursting at the seams, and there still does not seem to be an end to it.

The country needs a leaner, more efficient administration, not a mammoth machine that is bound to create greater bureaucracy, a matter thatthe government is supposedly trying to reduce.

A number of councils have to put their financial house in order and the government needs to be more responsive to their needs.