A Real Town Council

Although the result achieved (that any resident can now vote at the forum) is a step forward, I believe it is not the real answer. It seems to me that the people of Bexhill are all too ready to criticise the District council as being unrepresentative yet they do not fully realise that what they are missing is a tier of democracy.

Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for a Town Council for Bexhill as we have seen how much the rural areas benefit from having their own Parish Councils.

What Town and Parish Councils are not is another layer of bureaucracy. Each of the many Parishes and two small Towns within Rother District is a group of elected councillors and a clerk who works only part time according to the demands of each council.

Only the clerk is paid a salary and rarely do the councillors claim an allowance. At this level much time is given freely to the community. Those councillors are residents of or work in the local community they represent. Only local electors can say who these councillors are and residents have to travel no further than their local hall to find them.

Maybe Bexhill is too big for a town council. Perhaps each individual community such as Little Common and Sidley should have their own parish council. There is encouragement from the Government for this to be so.

The letter columns of the Bexhill and Battle Observer newspapers surely reflect the amount of dissatisfaction with their local district council.

More letters appear in the Bexhill columns on this subject than the Battle and Rye edition.

Bexhill will only get true local representation from really local representatives.