| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Front page article re. area planning committees | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 03/06/11 17:04:00 |
| Adam With respect, one could take the same view on any aspect of the council's work. Councillors are not architects so why should they influence housing policy? They are not policemen so why should they be involved in community safety? They are not part of the teaching profession so why should they have a say in education matters? This argument forgets one rather inconvenient fact. Councillors are elected by their constituents to represent them, and the communities they serve. They have (or ought to have) local knowledge that planners and other bureaucrats will often not have. And they will have a better understanding of the effects that any proposed development will have upon the people they represent. Following the logic of your argument Adam we should do away with elections and elected representatives completely and leave all the decisions to suits who often do not even reside in the borough and who in any case are not answerable to its residents, on the grounds that they have been to college. The whole rationale of a local authority is that it has a democratic mandate to make decisions. That mandate becomes a mockery unless policy and strategy are directed by elected representatives and executed by unelected officers, whose professionalism and expertise in their field should in turn be respected by members. Your postings are always polite and well-intentioned Adam, but they also demonstrate in a way that you probably do not intend the need for democratic accountability in the decisions that effect people's neighbourhoods and everyday lives. |