HARRINGTON can find time for any local councillor, regardless of the colour on their rosette, as long as they do one thing: tell us what they really think.

After years of sitting in council meetings and interacting with local politicians, nothing is as unimpressive as hearing them recite scripts from pieces of paper.

It’s wholly underwhelming to hear their lemming-like adherence to every last note of pre-agreed stage management.

No risks, no fury.

How unusual then was the scene at neighbouring Camden town hall on Monday night when Labour councillor Awale Olad dispensed with the tip-toe diplomacy that the local authority applies to the Lime bike hire company.

Leaving no room for doubt about what his personal feelings are, he told one of the firm’s top staff in London across a council committee desk that he thought it was “a terrible, mendacious, incompetent, irresponsible, company”.

Cllr Olad says on some weeks half the emails that arrive in his council inbox are about dumped Lime bikes and overflowing parking bays in his Holborn and Covent Garden ward.

The front page of this week’s Camden New Journal

At one point, we weren’t sure whether his list of unflattering descriptions for the company would ever end.

You may disagree with him. You may be a loyal Lime bike rider, but it was nonetheless refreshing to hear a councillor share their thoughts without mumbling about… working in partnership with the relevant agencies to reach solutions for residents, or whatever it says down here on this memo from the whips.

Those who follow local politics in central London may well be thinking that Cllr Olad only felt liberated to speak in such a tone because he is stepping down from the council in May.

Perhaps going down that line only illustrates the point that councillors cage themselves in when it comes to commenting on anything.

He will surely enjoy a life where not every opinion needs “sign-off” from somebody else.

As well-liked as he is in the corridors, the Labour council leadership will no doubt have found his performance unhelpful.

Councils all over town are finding it difficult to strike a balance between meeting residents’ concerns about dumped bikes and not upsetting the people who can afford to rent them each day and like them as a new travel option.

Lime understandably regularly reminds councils of the latter, but it did not stop Hounslow council pulling the plug on the service recently.

Islington is reportedly considering doing the same.

The firm’s public affairs chief Jack McKenna was the man who faced the rage in committee room two this week.

He said it was “unequivocal” that Lime had improved in the past 12 months when it came to moving bikes out of the way and tidying the bays.