The decisions made in council meetings often pass many people by, even though they involve large amounts of public money.

When councils do try to gather opinion from residents on some scheme or other, there is frequently a high degree of public apathy.

Councils call this process consultation, which usually amounts to leaflets through the door and perhaps an exhibition featuring drawings of the project in question. Often turnout at these exhibitions is pitifully small. Then, lo and behold, large sums of money are spent as the scheme goes ahead.

It's not clear what level of consultation went on at Filton Town Council when it built a cycle speedway track and boules court.

What is clear is hardly anyone wants these two facilities.

It seems the track is used by two men from Leicestershire, someone from Somerset, a struggling local club of eight members and an occasional group of toddlers in go-karts. For a £45,000 outlay, the income is negligible.

There are two things which seem astonishing about this fiasco.

First, that an elected body would even contemplate such a scheme without researching whether there was a demand for it.

And secondly, it would seem that both projects have not registered as much as a blip on the radar of most Filton people.

No one is using it but even worse than that, no one in Filton even knows no one is using it.

There are important lessons to be learned here. Councils say they do not have enough money for services. In which case, they need to assure us that their own house is in order and that spending £45,000 on sports which seem to go beyond the term niche cannot be justified.

They also need to realise public consultation is vital and a lack of a public response should not be a reason to continue, but instead should cause alarm bells to ring.