THANKS FOR YOUR VOTES

WE would like to express our gratitude to the residents of Macclesfield Central who voted to elect us as their Cheshire East councillors on May 2.

We will work for the benefit of all Central ward residents and the wider community, and look forward to engaging. with our constituents on a regular basis. Coun Ashley Farrall (Lab) and Coun Liz Braithwaite (Lab) THE first annual general meeting since the local elections at the beginning of May saw some pretty major changes.

Cheshire East Council now has a Labour leader and an Independent deputy leader.

With the council now under ‘no overall control’ no group can dictate terms without the support of a second group. This is good for democracy.

The first motion of this new council, proposed by myself, was for a major overhaul of the governance of the council and was passed with an overwhelming majority.

This means that from May 2020 the current cabinet system will cease to operate, instead it will adopt the more open, transparent and democratic process called the committee system.

The cross-party constitution committee is now charged with making these changes ready for implementation next May.

The council still has to function for the next year so until the change a joint Labour/Independent administration called a ‘transition cabinet’ will operate.

I can assure residents that no cosy deal has been struck with any political party. The Independent Group remains just that, independent.

Claims that the recent local election rout should be blamed on Brexit are unfounded. The real reason is because residents were fed up with the goings on in council.

The public wanted a change. It proves that voting in elections really can make a difference.

There was also overwhelming support for the council to declare an environment and climate emergency. This means that the council will aim to become carbon neutral by 2025.

A challenging, but achievable target. None of these events would have been thought possible just a few short months ago.

These changes means that a line can finally be drawn and that events from the past really can now be called ‘historic’.