Letter - Area Action Plans

Area Action Plans

Dear Sirs,
Labour Councillor, Ken Robinson, implies, when referring to Area Action Plans, that the majority of folk in a particular part of Teesdale District wish to be more associated with Bishop Auckland (Mercury 18th February).
Just what is it with these people and there permanent wish to skew democracy when the real result, and wish of the public, is not favourable to the not-so-democratic Labour Party.
The continuing furore regarding the changes to the structure and tiers of local government ought never have reached this level - and the continuing wasting of millions of pounds of your money is due to the downright arrogance of the Labour Party, which has seeped from national level down to the local councils.
Might I remind Councillor Robinson how democracy ought to work - the public vote and the politicians abide by the rules and outcome of the vote...fairly simple to grasp really, even for tub-thumping socialists.
November 2004, the North East was asked to vote for a North East Assembly. We know the outcome - the public saw through it and it was heavily defeated.
Every district of the North East voted NO. In Teesdale, 81.6% voted NO and against the idea, on a 56.1% turnout. The vote was clear enough and so were the rules - no change to local government unless there was a YES vote...and these were the words of the Government Minister at the time, writing in The Northern Echo of Sat 6th November 2004.
LOCAL Government Minister Nick Raynsford yesterday ruled out the abolition of district councils in County Durham in the wake of the No vote.
However, Mr Raynsford insisted that it had been made clear beforehand that local government reorganisation would only be triggered by a Yes vote.
Yesterday, he said: "When politicians give pledges, it is right that they honour those pledges and we pledged not to carry through those changes unless there was a Yes vote."
Honouring pledges...politicians, bet you laughed at that one!
When it became quite clear that Labour wasn't going to let such a (democratic) vote stand in its way, the Durham Districts, in conjunction with the Electoral Commission, electors in County Durham were invited to vote to:
A. Retain and improve the current arrangement of County and District Councils
B. Establish a single Unitary Council for the whole of County Durham.
Again all the districts voted for Option A with massive majorities, Teesdale 73.3% in favour.
Is democracy clear enough yet for Councillor Robinson?
We now see the same old tired tactic when they can't get their way...it goes something like this, well, we've consulted the stakeholders and all are in favour (of the opposite view of the public...fingers in pies and all that) of the Bishop Auckland AAP. Funny that, isn't it, those with an direct interest in a particular outcome ignore the voters.
In reality, less than 1% of the public can overturn two referendum results that offered every last person the opportunity to vote on local government structures.
We are where we are now with the AAP's, but why on earth aren't the public running these people out of town, they should be as far removed from the democratic process as is possible, which at present is called the EU.
Jim Tague
Bishop Auckland