Thame Councillors Luke Warm About Strengthening Their Role

THAME’s town councillors, and their County Councillor seem unconcerned that an independent commission has found that nearly half of rural people do not believe that they can influence decisions, and that a quarter would not channel their views through their local councillor.
At a meeting of Thame Town Council’s Policy and Resources committee recently, the committee was asked to consider taking part in an Enquiry into strengthening the role of rural councillors, to be carried out by the Commission for Rural Communities, an independent body set up after the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act came into force.
County Councillor, Nick Carter told the meeting:”This is just another trendy body set up by this government, that should be treated with circumspection and not touched with a long barge pole.”

The Commission wants to hear from rural councils, parish clerks, community groups, local partnerships, council officials, business associations and anyone with ideas and experience they want to share eg:
* examples where rural councillors are helping their community influence local decisions
* the barriers and constraints that stand in the way of rural councillors doing more
* why people sometimes chose other routes, such as charities or community groups to influence local decisions
* what the role of councillors should be in the future and what’s needed to unlock that potential.

See: Link
for more information.

The committee concluded that individual councillors could look up the details themselves on the Commission’s website if they wanted to.