POLL GAP IS TOO LONG
YOUR report that Rossendale Council has decided to move to one election for a full council every four years instead of the current system of electing a third of the council on each of three years out of four (‘Everybody Out! Council moves to all-out elections every four years from
May,’ April 12).
One of the reasons is apparently that 52% of a ‘consultation’ of 155 people (out of a population of 70,000) agreed that this was a good idea.
The report to the council meeting in fact shows that when only residents’ views (as opposed to including stakeholders’ views) were taken into account just
133 responded and only 49% were in favour of the change.
This made me think of the tiny writing at the bottom of TV adverts which state such things as ‘78% of 66 people questioned agree that a particular skin cream has cured their spots,’ therefor the advertiser can claim that their product is the most popular skin cream in the country.
Another supposed reason for the change was to save money, this from the council which has cost us, the council tax payer, over £10M on the Empty Homes Scandal and has no plan on how to reimburse us.
I looked at the council’s website to check the minutes of the council meeting where this decision was made.
Out of our current council of 36, only 30 attended.
Of those, eight are standing down at this election so the decision was made by only 22 who could be part of the next council.
Your report mentioned several councillors who spoke against the plan, but then voted for it!
I asked one of these why and the response was ‘we were whipped’ – i.e. they had to vote as their party told them.
So there we have it, Rossendale democracy in action again – the leaders of the two main parties know best and we the electors will have to accept their decisions for the next four years, like it or not.
Why am I so bothered about this change?
On April 5 (‘Contempt for voters,’ letters) you published a letter in which I criticised two of my three ward councillors.
One isn’t standing for re-election and one is standing in another ward.
Well, if we already have elected members who don’t carry out their duties when they can give up after one year, how many will we find drifting along at various points over the next four years instead of doing a proper job?
A quick look at the nominations list for the
May elections shows that the two main parties, Labour and Conservative, can only muster 26 and 25 candidates respectively and that six Labour, three Conservative, and one Independent members of the current council have decided against standing for re-election.
In addition, anyone knowing the candidates will know that some of them on both parties are there in name only and will be unlikely to take a full part in their work if elected.
If the current system were to continue there would be more chance of
enthusiastic candidates being found to fill ten seats each year rather than thirty in one go every four years, and the residents of the borough would be able to make their views of their elected members known on an annual basis rather than once every four years,
thus keeping them on their toes.