Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Community Council meetings galore

Hutchison and Chesser Community Council on Monday night; Tollcross Community Council Tuesday night ... Merchiston next week and Craiglockhart the week after.

These new multi-member wards have definitely led to elected Members losing touch with their communities and not being reactive to local events ... NOT, of course.

All the doom-mongers, who were certain that the mythical Member-Ward would be broken and local politics would collapse, do need to reflect on their predictions.

I've never seen so many elected Members at Community Council meetings; with healthy competition between them; and good, constructive engagement with the actual Community Council members themselves.

Okay - my Ward is obviously bigger, and I'm noticeably busier at a local level ... but isn't that a good thing?

Mind you, maybe that's exactly what the cynics were afraid of?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay - my Ward is obviously bigger, and I'm noticeably busier at a local level ... but isn't that a good thing?

Mind you, maybe that's exactly what the cynics were afraid of?


Personally I think it is brilliant. It is about time the politicians got back involved with what was actually happening with their constituents. All for it.

BTW - to see a Real community council meeting, I have it on good authority that the Craigmillar Community Council is the place to be (just ask Mr. Nolan, their (disputed) Chair - if you want woken up to see what could happen when the politicians forget their constituents then a visit down to Craigmillar is the way to go.

The last meeting had all three councillors, senior council officials and the biggest turnout for years and the meeting never even got started. The previous one had Inspector Knacker charging four people with 5 charges in total - now that is some discussions.

Andrew said...

... of course, some of us have always been involved "with what was actually happening with their constituents" :-)

Anonymous said...

I have no doubt at all that there are politicians who are deeply involved in their community and constituents - it is a shame, in my opinion, they are so thin on the ground.

On a positive note, Kenny MacAskill is seemingly working out as an amazing constituency MSP down in Edinburgh East according to all the local drums from rugrats to coffin dodgers - With a heavy load of Ministerial responsibilities to boot, he seems to be working out a refreshing treat.