YOU may not believe this, but I don’t actually go looking for trouble.

Lately, however, controversies have kept cropping up right, left and centre, all positively begging me to poke my nose in.

Now, let me see. Shall I have a pop at a) the Youth Hostel Association, b) Wiltshire Council (surely not?) or c) you guessed it, Wiltshire Council again?

The YHA has flogged off Salisbury’s hostel to a developer, regardless of a government inspector’s ruling only last year that this budget-priced accommodation was vital for our tourism-based economy.

The charity says it’s exchanged unconditional contracts, so yah-boo, sucks to you if you don’t like it.

The city council wants the building listed as a community asset to help prevent a change of use. Good. Does this amount to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? I hope not.

With luck our planners will dig their heels in and refuse once again to allow it to be turned into retirement flats.

But with cash so tight, do their Wiltshire Council bosses have the stomach to fight another appeal?

Our Trowbridge overlords, meanwhile, have managed to annoy the city council, traders and police all at once – well done, chaps, a triple whammy! – with the high-handed manner in which they’ve shed responsibility for our CCTV system without so much as a consultation, let alone an apology.

Everyone’s now frantically casting around for cash and a small army of volunteers (each one, presumably, requiring security vetting) to keep it operating.

I’d call that total vindication for those former district councillors who told me back in 2009 that the service was doomed under the unitary authority.

However, I wouldn’t want people to think I’m knocking this praiseworthy salvage mission. I’m not. Just the distant rulers who forced it upon us.

And don’t even get me started on the debacle at the dump, with queues as long as the wait for a revamp at the Maltings.

A wholly foreseeable shambles.

If only we could put Wiltshire Council in Room 101.

anneriddle36@gmail.com