Two Lib Dem town councillors (Liz Slater and Mukesh Bansal - both Victoria ward) have resigned because they have better things to do with their lives.

Which means a by-election to select their replacements. As the Lib Dems have a majority of only one on the council this could see the Tories taking over, though their past performance in Victoria doesn't seem that promising.

Anyone fancy standing? http://newbury.gov.uk/pdfs/news/NTC-Vacanc...ce-28-02-13.pdf

Mmmm, maybe, how much is a deposit these days?

Surely first requirement is for lots of NTC constituents to write in requiring the election, otherwise it will be Old Pals.......

Have regular constituents ever actually called for an election?

I know there is a large deposit (£600?) for a parliamentary election, but is one required for council elections? If there were, I doubt anyone would stand!

Edit: just checked my facts - £500 for parliament and £5000 for Police Commissioner (!). No mention of anything else.

Nothing for a Parish or Town, as far I'm aware.

Probably not, which is how the Old Pals retain control

There was an election less than two years ago.

I am talking more about the co-option process, but the band of luminaries who stand for election are rarely likely to come up with any progressive activity......

Almost anyone can stand for election, it's not the "band of luminaries" you should blame but those you're implying should stand, but don't.

I was talking more along he lines of political activists tend the to be the "constituents" who call for elections.

Agreed, and I don't disagree with user either.

My point is Parish Councils, at the bottom of the political pile, are the easiest place for an independent to make a stand - start up the ladder, even - but it does not happen often enough. The party structure strangles local politics, even at Parish/Town level. Hungerford Town Council used to be proudly apolitical.

I wouldn't blame them either, I'd blame the people who do and don't vote, with their selfish and unrealistic expectations.

In reality, is there any point in standing? This is after all a parish council with little or no real authority over anything that matters. That two councillors have resigned speaks volumes. Really would be better just to wind it up; our local residents association manages to do more an d that's at no cost.

Agree.

I just wonder if these decisions have anything to do with the, secret, outcome of the Parkway cracks fiasco?

I'd like to stand but it would be humiliating to get no votes, and if I got in it would still be very difficult to get a public discussion on anything meaningful with the agenda controlled by the self-serving esatblishment.

Even so it would also be good to get a few things onto the agenda. Things like:

The cracks fu-bar and general Victoria Park snafu with the possibility of passing it all back to WBC.
Saving £100k through allotment self-management.
Saving £100k by doing without a mayor.
Saving £100k by moving out of the town hall.
Saving £100k by dropping the charter market.
Saving £100k by cutting all the lady-bountiful funding to local clubs and groups

There really needs to be a serious discussion about whether there is a need for the town council at all or whether everything they do couldn't be done more professionally and accountably by WBC - it really is amazing how little they achieve with so much. My personal view is that a parish council should be at the centre of an active community, but NTC just don't understand community and it's all about being as big and important as possible, and de-parishing may now be the best option - creating a little vacuum so that community organisations can fill it.

Obviously, any discussion on that whole agenda will be vigorously resisted, but it would be good to see it happening.

Oh, and if any Independents get elected - do feel free to send me a copy of those secret February 2011 meeting minutes.

I plan to run for election because I actually want to be a councillor and make a contribution in Newbury. I just hope that the people of Newbury don't vote for more paper candidates from the Tories and Lib Dems!!

I will publish my manifesto soon, but I plan to run in an effort to improve transparency in the town. Don't forget both the Fib Dems and Tories have held back information on the Parkway cracks issue, treating the electorate with contempt. I'd also like to pt a stop to empire building by the Lib Dems, who try to take on extra responsibilities as a parish council because they can't win control of the district council.

Maybe in an effort to save costs, the council would consider co-opting me and Simon? (I won't bank on it!)

If anyone would like to help me get elected, please let me know - richard.garvie@gmail.com

(Good luck Simon - you should totally do it!!!)

Well it's good to see you've started your campaign without resorting to childish name-calling. Who says you cannot campaign in a positive manner?

Yes, the spin of a spinner!

*spanner

Good stuff Richard, I'll be pleased to campaign for you. NTC desperately needs free-thinking councillors who can challenge the vested interests and cosy self-serving establishment. NTC spends £1M a year on not very much, and around half of that could be saved just by scaling down their empire.

If NTC does have a role then it's as a facilitator at the centre of the community, and that needs community-minded people to edge out the old guard.

I'm giving some serious thought to standing, but I'd sooner support someone else - it would also be a shame to split the independent vote so if there is another serious independent apolitical candidate I'd sooner get behind the two of you.

Strafin - will you stand? You have experience, and I'd be really pleased to support you.

Since when has The Labour Party been apolitical?

Since it first started.

I am definetly considering it, I have the inclination and the time.

*edit Wife Dependent

Great looks as if we have some lively interest.

For goodness sake User, of all the sensible issues you could raise under this thread you nick-pick inane grammar? Read what I said:

another candidate other than me!

As you very well know, the problem as I see it is that NTC councillors are lib-dem and tory puppets who are there mostly for the social status and a shot at being mayor, or getting a free holiday on the twin-town budget. They don't see anything wrong with the council's inefficiency, ineptitude, or stallinist repression and frankly they're appalled and offended at the temerity of the few jumped-up proles who presume to question their omnipotence and disturb their peace. I don't believe it's intrinsically a problem of tory or lib-dem politics, the problem is how the party apparatus has been used to control the councillors and inure them to the developing problems. There have been a series of issues at the council going back ten years, and each time they failed to address their problems they made it harder than ever to confront their decline. Party politics isn't the only factor at play in the development of that culture, but it hasn't helped, and likewise non-con-dem councillors won't in itself cure the problem, but the solution sure as hull isn't coming from the con-dem establishment so it has to be welcomed.

Can we get together and talk about it?

Just seems as bit strange to refer to The Labour Party as independent.

I'm not sure of the rules, but it says here Richard has been living in Spalding since 2009, so I'm not sure if he's eligible to stand in Newbury.

Spalding Today

It's a well known fact I was working in Spalding and living there for a short period before coming back to Newbury and before I got into politics. Roughly end of 2009 and came back in the Feb of 2010 as I'd just tied up the rights for NASCAR on behalf on a SKY Channel the week before the Daytona 500 (start of Feb each year) and I was living in Stockcross back then.

Let's talk about issues in Victoria ward since I got involved in local politics.

CCTV
Pavilion
Skate Park
Play area / fence
Cracks
Speeding buses
Vandalism of Victoria Park kiosk
Faraday Road development / threat to football ground
Threat of a bus lane on the A4
Rats along the canal / back of Poundstretcher
Reduction is staff at railway station
Affordable housing at the racecourse and a proposed reduction of number of affordable homes
Delays to the new roundabout on Hambridge Road, first raised by me last year, later recycled by Lib Dems
Lack of security and police cover around the industrial areas
Safety along footpath of canal
Phasing of traffic lights at Robin Hod and Sainsbury lights
Lack of road improvements to accommodate Parkway traffic
Removal of public use of Bayer car park at weekends

I'm sure there are many more, and I have the press cuttings and audio recordings of the coverage my efforts secured for those issues. If the byelection result was based on hard work and representing the community in that ward, is there many people who would be chosen ahead of me?

My main campaign pitch (if selected by the party) will be that I want greater transparency at the town council, starting with full disclosure of the cause of the parkway cracks issue so residents and businesses in the ward can finally claim on their insurance and receive compensation from whoever was responsible.

Secondly, I would be lobbying for a reduction in the annual turnover of the council. At a time when people are choosing between eating or heating, is it right that we spend this much money on a parish council with very limited powers?

There are many other issues that are important in that ward right now, and whoever the Labour Party candidates may be will fight this election with real passion about doing things differently and injecting fresh, young blood into local politics.

I didn't know about that, but isn't that up to Bayer themselves, rather than a council issue?

No, Bayer were happy for it to continue but the district council brought it to an end.

It's a council issue because the council decided to stop renting the car park from Bayer on Saturdays - to save costs and raise revenue from its own car parks. However, it is a WBC issue, not an NTC issue. Nor is it particularly a Victoria Ward issue - few residents there need to drive into town and park.

RG does seem to have missed the biggest issue facing Victoria Ward in the near future - the demolition of Highfield Avenue, the bus station and two car parks to make way for a new 'urban village'.

As for the Victoria Park issue - RG makes out that residents etc suffering from subsidence are unable to claim on their insurance without the report - which seems to me to be a ludicrous claim. Why can't they claim? It is up to their insurers to seek redress from SLI/Costain if they choose to do so, not the property owners (unless they weren't insured). If the insurance companies want to seek damages from SLI/Costain they can commission their own report or, more likely, come to a deal with NTC to share a joint action - which would give them access to the NTC report. In reality the insurers probably don't really care who is to blame - they end up paying either way (SLI/Costain will be insured against third party claims) - why add to the bill just to make lawyers rich?

I didn't realize the council rented it. I thought it was Bayer returning something to the community. They got a good PR deal out of that as well then, if others thought as I did.

More mischief making I see user23.

why not - more fun that way.

Well good for Richard; at least he has a list of real and pertinent issues. Wonder what our dear Town Councillors would come up with:-

1. Need to convince electors all is OK with water table damage (Don't mention the report!)
2. Urgent refurbishment and renewal of civic robes
3. Vitally necessary issues surrounding flags
4. Errr
5. That's it

I agree. Apart from house prices in West Berks, equine DNA 'scandal', the Papal Conclave, and meteorite prevention measures I think that list just about covers every base.

It would be helpful to know if the cctv is up and running as should be
the Pavilion is dead and buried
Final closure as to the cracks in Victoria Park
I was not aware of a problem with the speed of the buses
Reduction of staff at railway station is First Great Western/Network rail not NTC
Security and policing is a TVP /PC thing again not NTC
Traffic light phasing is a problem though out the town centre area not just the Robin Hood Sainsbury area
Lack of improvements not just Parkway and a bridge for buses and taxis only, but also the banning of lorries in Mill Lane

User23 often says more people should get involved on local politics, but when they do, he quickly resorts to tactics that he himself would object to.

Yes but who takes any notice of what User says anyhow? He only posts to break the boredom of nothing better to do at WBC! He is classed as the WBC stand up comedian apparently but been told not to give up his lucrative day non-job.

I think RG makes himself an easy target. He only ever seems to appear on the forum when he's trying to drum up support for something he's involved in or when there's a whiff of a vote in the air.

For someone who seems to want people to believe he wants to make a difference and not be seen to be like every other politician, he ends up looking like every other politician.

To be fair he has been doing other things, he can't be fully "on" as a politician 24/7

That is fine, and it is reasonable to put people who wish to stand for office under scrutiny, but what user23 did just now was seemingly attempt to paint RG as an illegitimate candidate, even though I suspect user23 knows roughly where he lives.

why would anyone want to get involved?

it won't make no bleeding difference.

Or, perhaps, someone who will stick their oar into anything and say all the right things about making a difference and how passionate he is about <insert place name here> and its people if it gets his name in the press.

After all, assuming the Richard Garvie in User23's link is the same as "our" RG, then most of the sentiment in the "I-have-no-hidden-agenda" letter he has repeated in relation to Newbury in one form or another.

And if you cut through all the frilly language in his open letter to the good folks of Spalding, he says himself that his motivation is to build himself a career.

well he would, wouldn't he.

I quite agree, but another argument, and is also a move a way from democracy.

That's 'successful' politicians for you!

And what, in the name of the Great Prophet Zarquon, has that to do with the parish council? With the distinguished exception of Cllr Pick, the parish council knows zip-all about town planning. Yes, I understand that the parish council are statutory consultees, but the district council is not obliged to take any notices of their ill-informed gibberings. The parish council should drop the Planning Committee and save us all the cost of the pointless exercise.

Exactly so.

But there is still a need to see the hydrogeological report. The initial report was prudent and inexpensive, but it would appear that the council committed themselves to a story which the report didn't support, and they tried to dig themselves out of their hole, spending more and more money, and inventing excuse after excuse for not publishing the report. That ineptitude and mismanagement has cost the town many £thousands and there needs to be an honest accounting for that. I don't suppose we'll ever know how much it cost us, and they'll obfuscate it in the books, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that the £250k the council borrowed will not end up improving the park.