Transparency in our council decisions

The two Conservative councillors who wrote to the Advertiser last week proved beyond doubt that the administration and the opposition have very different ideas about how open, transparent democracy works.

If anyone doubted that decisions were routinely made out of the public gaze, the appointment of a ‘Chief Whip’ should give cause for concern.

You can go online and see how your local councillor voted on a topic but with one group whipped and the rest silenced, how can you know what influenced their decision?

We have been told that instead of debating matters in public, we should raise our concerns by email or phone, out of the public gaze, which would have the effect of reducing those public meetings to a mere rubber-stamping exercise.

Even if we did receive papers in enough time to do this (sometimes we only have a few hours to digest their contents), this is the opposite of how the borough’s Liberal Democrats and Independents believe the council should be run.

Openness and transparency should be our watchwords. We want to see councillors coming together to discuss the best way forward for the whole borough in public, and involving the public in those decisions.

And yes, if that means extra meetings, with councillors needing to think on their feet when presented with new information, then so be it — it’s what we all signed up for.

SIMON WERNER Leader of the opposition Lib Dem councillor for Pinkneys Green