I really must apologise. I totally under-estimated the depths of the self-absorbed obsession with their internal processes to which our local council is capable of stooping.

A couple of days ago I wrote about a council meeting to be held tonight to deal with the important and pressing problems caused by an increase in air traffic and noise disruption over the rooves of our houses in Walthamstow. With the council supposed to be considering conducting an investigation into the issues relating to that, I foolishly assumed they would be discussing conducting an investigation into issues relating to the recent increase in air traffic over Walthamstow.

Silly me. It turns out that the good councillors were more interested in discussing conducting an investigation into whether they had read their own pre-postal strike mailbag.

Under the probably slightly sarcastic headline that "WALTHAM FOREST: Councillors vote for action against airport expansion", the local paper is reporting that in fact all the councillors have decided to do at this stage is launch an investigation "to find out whether or not Waltham Forest Council was consulted on plans to expand London City Airport."

Questions were put to ex-Council Leader Clyde Loakes about whether, when he was in charge, he was contacted by Newham Council as council leader about a planning application to expand the airport. Clyde Loakes said he never received a letter. It seems though that his word is not worth much to the people who are closest to him and know him best. Rather than take him at it, the council have decided that the best course now is for "a monitoring officer" to establish whether any officer at the council received a letter and whether a response was provided.

I shall no doubt sleep soundly tonight knowing that the wheels of our local govenment grind on and that growing numbers of pilots will get a bird's eye view of the local town hall while a "monitoring officer" pokes about in an unknown number of dusty intrays at taxpayers' expense before shrugging his shoulders. But I should apologise. I completely under-estimated the capacity of our councillors to fail to get a proper discussion of the issues off the ground without first running into a bureaucratic headwind.