‘Wise counsel’ will be missed
Kingsclere parish councillor Fiona Sawyer, 78, steps down after 25 years service
A KINGSCLERE parish councillor who has been serving the community for more than 25 years has stepped down from her role.
Fiona Sawyer first served as a parish councillor under the chairmanships of the late Elizabeth Kay and Peter Woodman in the 1990s and then spent time as assistant clerk, returning in 2016 to serve for a further five-and-a-half years as a parish councillor.
Now aged 78, Mrs Sawyer has decided the time is right to retire from the council.
The decision came after the council had three members of the public step forward to fill a vacancy left by former councillor Adam Price and Mrs Sawyer saw the opportunity to retire while not leaving the council “in the lurch”.
She said she had grown frustrated with the amount of bureaucracy and consultations parish councillors were now asked to do, compared to when she first joined the council, and about the council’s position on matters such as housing in the parish being ignored.
Kingsclere has recently been tasked with building 175 new homes in the parish by the borough council’s rural space strategy as part of its Local Plan update, going against the village’s Neighbourhood Plan, which planned for
around 50 homes.
A planning application for a care home has also been submitted on a site earmarked for 13 houses.
Mrs Sawyer, who is married to council chairman John Sawyer, said: “We’re being asked to work at a level that’s way beyond what I first experienced as a councillor.
“We’re asked to make comments about very significant things, but then have that ignored by the next level up and the next level.
“If you think about the Neighbourhood Plan, we put a lot of work in to it and it was described as exemplar, but you see the number of houses and it goes completely against what’s in the plan.”
Despite these frustrations, Mrs Sawyer remains proud of many of the things achieved in her time at the council and doesn’t plan to step away from volunteering in the community any time soon.
She continued: “We have made a real effort to keep in contact with
... we have in Fiona a significant record of voluntary public service
people and make it easier to know what the council is doing and made us accessible to parishioners.
“We responded to traffic concerns by getting the SIDs [speed indication devices] in operation, we’ve got the community orchard by the allotments and we’ve more or less got the cemetery plan sorted out now.
“I was interested in the befriending service I saw in the Tower.
“I can’t see myself settling in to a cosy retirement.”
The council paid tribute to Mrs Sawyer in a column in the village’s Tower magazine.
It wrote: “We have greatly valued her experience and wise counsel in meetings and her hard work on planning and personnel panels, and her organisational skills on events, such as the Making a Difference Awards.
“We all have come to rely on her proof-reading skills and her clarity with the written word.
“Add to this her work as a Village Club trustee, secretary of Kingsclere Film Club, her volunteering with the community library and victim support and, for a while, as a school governor, we have in Fiona a significant record of voluntary public service.
“The council will miss you but wish you well in your ‘retirement’.”
The two vacant councillor roles have been filled by Kingsclere residents David Conquest and Simon Jones.