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by Claire Young on 23 February, 2016
Next week could be your last chance ever to have your say at an Area Forum, after the ruling Conservatives scrapped them.
Not that anyone reading the council press release would have any idea they are being abolished. They talk about everything the public can do there and all the reasons to come along but don’t let on what’s planned. There is one innocuous looking line: “There will be an update on the future of the Area Forums.” That future is gone, because the Tories and Labour voted to get rid of them last week.
Why not come along and make your views known, not only on local highway schemes and community grants, but also on the decision to scrap the forums themselves? You will also be able to hear from Sirona Care and Health about community health care services and there will be an update from Network Rail on their forthcoming work on the Dodington Road railway bridge.
In future, instead of decisions about things like highway safety schemes and community grants being made by the councillors who live in and know the area, they will be made by council committees that have themselves been merged. One committee will now cover everything from waste to strategic planning, libraries to traffic schemes – and make decisions on community grants. The Conservatives have suggested that some of the community grant money could be given to individual councillors but couldn’t explain how this would be administered efficiently and transparently.
Frome Vale Area Forum meets at 7pm on Thursday 3rd March in Chipping Sodbury Baptist Church.
2 Comments
Interesting to read about the abolition of Area Forums. Here in Tonbridge and Malling there was move to abolish Area Planning Committees.
Local parish councils, the 4 Lib Dems on the council plus 2 Indpendants and bacj bench Tories objected. The scheme has beeb shelved.
One of the urguments was that other councils have or are abolishing such things and it would save money by cutting down on meetings.
That’s interesting to hear. Here they didn’t come up with a figure for how much it would save, they just said that the package of committee changes would contribute to an overall “cost of democracy” saving.