The Milne Street Floodlights: Writing to a Council Form
You are a Year 11 student at Riverton College. Since 3 June the four floodlights at the Milne Street skate park have been off, and the park is unusable after about 5:20 p.m. You have skated there most evenings for two years. On 8 June, at 5:45 p.m., a Year 9 student on a scooter crossed Milne Street in near-darkness and was clipped by a car's wing mirror; her mother reported it. You have phoned the council twice (6 June, reference 44-1092; 12 June, reference 44-1887) and been told each time that the job is 'in the queue'. You want the lights fixed before the July school holidays, when about 40 younger kids use the park each evening. The council's online form accepts a statement of up to 250 words. You are tempted to write what you actually think: that the council is useless and probably hoping everyone gives up.
1. The form asks for 'the issue and the outcome you want'. Write your opening two sentences (no more than 40 words) and explain the choices you made about tone and detail.
Read the worked answer
Sample: 'Since 3 June the four floodlights at the Milne Street skate park have not worked, which makes the park unusable after about 5:20 p.m. I am asking for the lights to be repaired before the July school holidays, when about 40 younger children use the park each evening.'
Reasoning: the opening does three jobs at once. It names the fault and the date it began, it converts the fault into an impact the reader can act on, and it states the request immediately rather than making the officer hunt for it. The numbers (four lights, 3 June, 40 children) do more persuasive work than an adjective like 'disgraceful', because a council officer has to log and prioritise this against other jobs, and a dated, countable problem is easier to prioritise than an insult. I kept the register formal and flat: no sarcasm, no exclamation marks, no rhetorical questions. The reader is a stranger in a different building who decides whether this escalates, and anger gives them a reason to file the form and move on rather than to act.
2. A friend suggests you add the line 'You clearly don't care about kids' safety.' Explain whether that line should go in, using ideas about purpose and audience.
Read the worked answer
No - cut it. Test it against the two things that matter. Purpose: the goal is repaired lights before the holidays, not an apology or an argument. Audience: the reader is an unnamed council employee working through a queue of forms, probably sympathetic but with no budget authority and no power to admit fault on behalf of the council. The line attacks their motive rather than describing the problem, so it invites a defensive reply instead of a work order. It is also a claim with no evidence attached, in a statement where every word competes for 250. Written text carries no tone of voice, so what feels like justified frustration in your head reads as hostility on screen.
What the line is trying to do - convey urgency - can be done with a fact: 'On 8 June a Year 9 student was clipped by a car's wing mirror at 5:45 p.m. because the park was already dark.' That is harder to dismiss, and it keeps the reader on your side.
3. Explain how you would order the body of the statement and why that order suits this reader.
Read the worked answer
Order: (1) what is broken and since when; (2) what has happened as a result, including the 8 June near-miss and who uses the park; (3) what I have already done - the two phone calls with reference numbers; (4) the specific request with a deadline; (5) my contact details.
The order follows how the officer has to process the form. They must first identify the asset (Milne Street lights), then judge the risk level, then check whether the normal channels have failed, then decide what action to take. Putting the phone calls early would read as a complaint about service; putting them after the safety detail turns them into evidence that the ordinary route has not worked, which is the thing that justifies escalation. The July holidays give a real deadline rather than an invented one, which is why it comes with the request and not at the top. With a 250-word cap, each of these becomes one short paragraph with a single job, so nothing has to be re-read to be understood.