Saving our post offices

There are several kinds of council meeting, there is:

- The dramatic high tension set piece, frayed tempers and confrontations a plenty- not always resulting in the best policy, but certainly fun to watch.
- The unpleasant setpiece, when all the key decisions seem to have been taken in advance and all discussions seem to mean something more than what meets the eye
- The sleepy consensus, when no one is able or willing to grasp the key issue or to challenge the asumptions

But in the case of today's Post Office Task and Finish Group meeting it was a clear and decisive policy making forum in which plenty of ideas where kicked around and in which politicians of all parties worked together to the same goal.

We have yet to report back so I cannot reveal the details at this stage but I was very impressed to see the consensus that is developing around my idea of expanding their role in providing council services. This is an area where we can achieve savings and efficiencies for the council and ensure the continued running of sub-post offices where they are needed most.

This is exactly how government should seek to operate more often- enabling and encouraging, divesting power and providing choice and moving away from the old centralising, bureaucratic imposition politics of the 20th Century.

More to follow...

Neighbourhood Watch Returns

Hello again faithful readers!
You might well have been wondering where I have been of late and what I have been up to. Well truth be told it has been a fairly busy few months in Rushmoor Council-

• We have been working with St Modwen on the new town centre to make sure that despite the recession that the town centre development will go ahead as planned and to schedule. This has been quite a success- St Modwen have promised us that we will get the cinema, Sainsbury's and store units we are expecting, and on schedule. We are of course still waiting to see who fills them but we are feeling positive.
• We have been working hard with the local beat officers to achieve the ward priorities on cycling, neighbourhood watch expansion and Queen Elizabeth Park (where a new CCTV camera is due to go in soon)
• We have been working on the council budget to ensure that council tax rises are kept to a very minimum- the Westminster government is up to its old tricks of using unfunded mandates to make us pay for more of what they promise, thereby taking more money out of the pockets of council tax payers in Rushmoor- so we are trying to find local economies to compensate
• And a lot more...

For the near future though our top priority will be setting up neighbourhood watches- especially in the Marrowbrook area and the streets off it.

The police have quite a backlog of watches to set up but we are not going to be resting on our laurels and are still striving for 100% ward coverage.

So the chances are, if you live in that area you'll see me on your doorstep again sometime soon!