A town council would only be able to consult on planning issues

JILL Vincent ( Echo, September 27) is being disingenuous in arguing the case for a town council.

She suggests that the people of Loughborough are “not represented by a named body with the appropriate authority” and that a town council would “control such matters as parks and public spaces, planning and our town centre”.

In fact Charnwood would remain the planning authority for the area and a town council would only be able to consult.

Loughborough councillors already have a significant amount of influence within Charnwood. Jewel Miah chairs the Scrutiny Management board; Jeff Parsons chairs the Performance Scrutiny Panel; Margaret Smidowicz chairs the Overview Scrutiny Panel; Jonathan Morgan is deputy leader of the council; and I am on the cabinet with responsibility for private sector housing.

Indeed, of the nine cabinet members, six of them represent Loughborough constituency wards and only three of them are from Charnwood.

Like all councillors, I fight hard to represent the interests of my ward, Southfields, but also Loughborough.

For three months, between February and April, anyone had the opportunity to make proposals and all councillors, including Max Hunt, received a letter from Charnwood informing them of the Community Governance Review.

Only one person, who did not even live in the town, suggested a town council.

We are now in the second stage of this process and although anyone can suggest that we should consider the idea, it would be too late for any consultation to take place and the only comments will be from this Labour Party/SARG orchestrated letter-writing campaign.

There are two other consequences which Dr Vincent conveniently ignores.

The first is that this extra layer of local government bureaucracy will inevitably lead to an increase in council tax. And secondly, Charnwood would then become a district council and we would lose the position of mayor which can only exist under a borough.

I have yet to come across anyone on the doorstep who believes that we need another strata of local government and when the implications are spelt out – higher council tax and losing the mayor – I suspect that there would be even less backing for the idea.

Coun Paul Mercer Conservative Councillor Southfields Ward Charnwood Borough Council