VOTE: Our town must go it alone now

They are to ask government minister Eric Pickles to smash the local council set-up which rules the town.

Mr Pickles, the local government and communities secretary, has championed localism since the May election.

The town council's policy and resources committee decided on Monday to put him to the test.

They want to see Bognor run by its own council again for the first time in almost 40 years.

Paul Wells said the current set-up of county, district and town council had damaged Bognor.

"The system needs a damn good shake-up," he demanded. "For too many years, this town has been stifled and strangled by one organisation over at Littlehampton.

"Arun District Council should be abolished and done away with totally.

"Now is the time, with the new government, this town council should take steps to try to see if something could be achieved in terms of making things work for this town in the future."

Former town mayor Jeanette Warr said: "This matter has been mulled over for a number of years. We would like to be our own people.

"I get phone calls every week from people who say we are let down by people across the other side of the river. They would most definitely support us being a borough council."

Policy and resources committee chairman Greg Burt said the structure of local government for Bognor since 1974 had damaged the town.

"We have one of the most famous seafronts in the country and it has been destroyed," he said.

"It is heart-breaking when I see what it has gone from to what it is now."

The coalition national government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has pledged to let local people decide more of the issues which matter to them.

Mr Pickles is to be asked to use Bognor as one of the first examples around Britain.

Town councillors decided to send him a letter seeking to create a new council based on Bognor. Neighbouring parishes will be sent a copy to enlist their support.

It was a previous Conservative government that established the current three council structure by which the town is run.

This replaced the Bognor Regis Urban District Council in 1974 with Arun District Council with a neighbourhood council for the town set up four years later.

Services such as housing, planning, refuse collection and parks rest with Arun, while the town council looks after allotments and the Christmas lights. Other services are provided by the county council.

Anger at this state of affairs erupted with the Out of Arun campaign in 1990 after the loss of Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer.

Campaigners caused a series of referenda which decisively supported Bognor again having control over its local government services. But the national political will was lacking and the status quo prevailed.

One of those behind the campaign, Jim Brooks, is now a town and district councillor.

He told the committee: "Those polls showed 97 per cent of those who voted agreed Out of Arun was a natural development.

"The situation with councils for this town is not getting any better. It's Arun which should be abolished."

Town mayor Sandra Daniells said: "I don't agree with having a militant attitude to antagonise Arun.

"We should be doing this as a positive thing to make Bognor better."

Arun District Council declined to comment.

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