Leader would be city ‘dictator’

Coverage of the suggested cabinet system for Canterbury omits one important fact: the cabinet is appointed by the leader of the council. A cabinet system would in effect make Mr Fitterharding dictator. The cabinet would comprise his acolytes, holding their positions at his favour.

Mr Fitter-harding’s proposal exacerbates the unacceptable situation in which the cathedral city is effectively denied democratic local government. May 2019 saw the Conservative Party win 23 of the 40 council seats with only one Conservative (soon to become Lord Mayor) elected in a city ward. They did this on 35 per cent of the vote.

It is possible for the Conservatives to have a majority without a single council seat in Canterbury and only one in Whitstable with around 30 per cent of the vote in the district. This imbalance has two causes. First, the ward boundaries are drawn to benefit the Conservatives, with Labour and Liberal Democrat voting areas concentrated in the city or buried in large multi-member wards. Second, some polling districts with a Labour or Liberal Democrat majority are a long distance from the polling station whilst Conservative majority areas are frequently close to polling stations. An example of this is the South Street (WC2) area in Tankerton, where voters have to walk over a mile and cross the Thanet Way to vote, or the Cherry area (buried in Blean Forest) where voters have to walk over a mile down the busy Whitstable Road to Forty Acres Road.

Mr Fitter-harding says he would be accountable to the electorate. This is not true and cannot be true until the present gerrymander is ended.

The only democratic alternative to a collegiate structure is an executive mayor, elected by us all. Such mayors are elected using the transferable vote system, not first past the post, with second preferences of eliminated candidates counting. There would have been few if any elections since 1990 when such a system would have produced a Conservative mayor in our district, which is doubtless why Canterbury Conservatives prefer the present gerrymandered structure.

If a local politician wants supreme powers, he or she must first win the support or at least acquiescence of a majority of those who vote.

Joe Egerton Palace Street, Canterbury

■ I agree with those who are raising serious concerns regarding the proposed reversion to the cabinet system of local government for Canterbury City Council. The proposal by Ben Fitter-harding would, if approved, make an unrepresentative system even less representative. The firstpast-the-post electoral system already gives undue power to any party that can gain a majority of seats on the council, even if it has a minority of the votes.

The Conservatives may currently have a majority of councillors on the council, but they only won around one third of the votes in 2019 - so, the majority of voters wanted another party. If you also consider the turnout - just one third of the electorate voted then only 10-12% of the electorate actually voted Conservative. Ben Fitter-harding’s implied claim, that because the Conservatives hold a majority of the seats they have a mandate from the people to do what they want, therefore has no substance whatsoever. In any event, even if the party in power managed to get an absolute majority of the votes cast (which is extremely unlikely) they are still obliged under our democratic system to work for all the people of the district, not just for those who voted them in. The current committee system enables a variety of voices to be heard, and so is intrinsically more democratic than the cabinet system now being considered. Ideally of course, we would have a proportional electoral system, which would be even more democratic.

Keith Bothwell,

Green Party candidate in the Swalecliffe by-election

■ At my first city council meeting in 2007 the then Conservative Leader was John Gilbey remember him? - spent the whole meeting arguing that there was no such thing as climate change and all references to it should be removed from council papers. The current leader is Ben Fitter-harding who has it seems scrapped the climate change committee.

John Gilbey led the Westgate traffic trial as his own personal project. Ben Fitter-harding’s personal project is the underused, unnecessary and ugly multistorey car park by Canterbury West Station.

John Gilbey was a strong advocate of the cabinet system which he used and abused relentlessly. Ben Fitter- Harding is about to reintroduce the same system.

We are going around in circles. I think Canterbury deserves better than this - what do you think?

Ida Linfield Lib Dem city councillor for Canterbury South

Ray Walker recently cleared up 32 black sacks worth of rubbish from an A2 lay-by in a single day