At a Council meeting recently the Labour Leader of Ealing Council
made a comment that was more than a suggestion that he wants to stop all ward fora
meetings.
He said that Councillors should speak to the residents of their
wards one to one. Well, a message for Councillor Bell is that the Liberal
Democrats in Southfield ward, Chiswick, is that we do both.
We have four ward fora meetings each year (almost all of the
others have only 2, some three) plus we speak to people at both our Councillors’
advice sessions and by knocking of residents’ doors to survey them about what
issues are things they want fixing.
Then we fix people’s problems. Recently when visiting one street
in Chiswick we logged a number of issues and within a couple of days the street
had the dumped waste and litter removed as well as a new litter bin installed
(to reduce the litter that Acton Lane suffers from).
We run four ward meetings as we feel that it is crucial that
Councillors can meet residents more regularly than only twice a year, to answer
questions and to ask residents what topics they think are important in their
area.
We often invite the local police team which is great as they give
a face to some of the crime stories they read about in the media. They can ask
advice about local crimes (the level of crime in Liberal Democrat Southfield is
very low) to see how they can help themselves or neighbours suffering from car
crime, burglary or other types of crime.
Any politician who refuses to
want ward forum meetings from taking place, should be sacked!
Our masters (the
voters) deserve a way to ask about their elected Councillors questions and why
they have taken the actions they have taken.
In Southfield the Liberal Democrat councillors love ward forum meetings
as we hear how things really are.
That is why we have funded two additional
meetings, when other political parties want to see ward forum meetings
cancelled.
