Letter - Local Councillors

Local Councillors

I RESPOND to Arthur Barker’s letter in last week’s Mercury, where he pondered “precisely what the role of a councillor should be.”
Mr Barker is right that councillors should respond to the concerns and needs of electors; but that is only a part of a councillor’s role.
He is right that Teesdale Council’s recent policy on car parking has not adequately met either the needs of visitors, of residents of the Town Centre, or of the finances of the Council.
Mr Barker rightly raises the concern about the disastrous loss of young families, with its threats to the future of the town’s schools; an issue that I first raised last autumn.
That’s where the real role of councillors comes in; good councillors have vision and drive and look to the health and welfare of their community. Sadly that vision and drive seems to have been lacking in many Teesdale Councillors in recent years, leading to the sad situation that faces us now.
This Council has been officially led by that oxymoron the Teesdale Independent’s Group, which seems to have more feuding factions than there are in Iraq. I don’t need to remind Mercury readers of the recent shenanigans over the role of one leading member, or of the number of different positions held by group members about the Market Place toilets.
Teesdale Council has four excellent published aims, the last of which is “To meet the housing needs of our residents.”
When the local Labour Party publicly raised the issue of disastrous emigration of young families, the only Council response was to say that the Council had met its target of ‘affordable housing units’. True, but what’s that got to do with the housing needs of our young families, when ‘affordable housing’ is for households with incomes well below the National Average. Teesdale needs to identify sites for building the type of family houses needed by the young families who are moving out because they find what they need elsewhere at prices they can afford. One local politician told me that there was nothing the council could do because “it was not a housing authority”. So, do we just sit here until all the schools have been converted into retirement homes?
For too long, many Teesdale politicians have been reactive rather than proactive and have shown too little initiative, vision and organisation.
Durham County Council has been transformed over recent years so that “For four years in succession the council has won the highest possible rating in the government’s tough annual test of efficiency and effectiveness.” ( quote from page 5 of last week’s Mercury).
What Teesdale needs is to be fully represented in the new Unitary Council, and to do that it must return committed and organised politicians who have a vision for the dale’s future, together with the ability and determination to bring it about.