The kiosk at the station will close in just over three weeks, ending a 100 year tradition of having a kiosk at that location.  Even a last minute attempt to save it at the town council has failed.

Can anything still be done?  Well, there are plans to hold a vigil at the kiosk every Friday evening until it closes.  And there is still the matter of 1,400 signatures on a petition, but this has yet to be handed in to the town hall.

So when I was invited to a press appointment yesterday with the kiosk’s operator and the mayor (although admittedly not by either of them directly) I expected either to be told something new, such as a new solution for the bus drivers’ problem or a new location for the kiosk, or simply a photo appointment to hand over the petition.

As it turned out, neither was the case.  The appointment between them turned out to be a discussion, a sort of “setting the facts straight” affair.  Worse still, no-one had bothered to inform either the town hall or the mayor that the press had been invited.

In my opinion, that is not the way to deal with either the people in the town hall who you are hoping will help you stop your business closing next month, nor with the local press who you hope will be reporting on it.

I left the meeting to attend another appointment after the first hour, and – regardless of any personal opinion that I may have about the kiosk situation – took a conscious decision not to report on the details of what had been discussed.  As yet, I have not found any articles from the newspaper reporters who were present in their on-line editions either, so maybe they came to the same conclusion as well.