MPs’ round-up
We need people to get involved and vote Later this year in May, we will have the first elections for the new Somerset Council. The existing County Council and the four District Councils — Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, and South Somerset — are to be replaced with a single Council governing the whole of Somerset. It has been a long time coming; many will remember that a similar proposal for a unitary authority was made (and soundly rejected) back in 2007. But times change, and the ever-growing pressures on local councils to deliver their vital services has increasingly made clear the need for a more joined-up approach throughout the
Somerton & Frome MP David Warburton county. It is not a cost-cutting exercise, nor an attempt to dilute political engagement with local issues. It is simply the recognition that more needs to be done, and that better infrastructure is
Air ambulance donation
New Year’s Day Vintage and Classic Vehicle Run raises £1698 for Dorset And Somerset Air Ambulance Over 120 pre-1991 cars, buses, lorries and tractors took part in the run that was sponsored by Harts of Stur, along with 20 plus pre-1995 motorbikes, gathering in Sturminster Newton’s Station Road car park before embarking on a 39-mile, single hill or 48-mile, four hills run through the West Dorset countryside. The organisers would like to thank all the volunteers that helped marshal on the day, the local businesses that donated prizes for the raffle and the many people that turned up and donated so generously to the charity buckets whilst enjoying the sights and sounds on display. Pictured beside a pristine vintage MG are representatives of the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance being presented with a cheque by Graham Hart, managing director of Harts of Stur, and organisers of the vehicle run. The final sum raised was £1698, slightly more than was shown on the cheque at the time of the presentation.
32
New Blackmore Vale, 18th February 2022
needed, to help our local authorities do what they do best. But while 25 years of gestation may seem like a long struggle, that was actually the easy part. Walter Bagehot — our own local constitutionalist, just down the road in Langport — was very clear on this. As he put it, the “great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second.” Putting the new structures into place is relatively straightforward. The trick is making them work. Reflecting upon how political institutions evolve and sustain themselves, Bagehot noted that the challenge was “not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.” When the first proposal for a unitary authority was rejected in 2007, there was a genuine concern that there would be too few representatives covering too large an area. It would
be too difficult for residents to get in touch with their local councillors, and that it would be too difficult for councillors to keep abreast of local developments. And that certainly would have been a step backwards. When the new Somerset Council sits in April 2023, there will be 110 councillors covering Somerset. That’s twice the size of the existing County Council, and integrating the functions previously divided up between County and District Councils. That’s definitely an improvement on the previous proposal, but there is still that tricky second step which Bagehot mentions. We need to make it work. And that means we need as many different voices and perspectives to be heard in the local elections in May. We need as many people as possible to get involved and to cast their vote. That way we can really make it a unitary authority for Somerset.
Dorset businesses For those of you who don’t follow Twitter, I was under a bit of fire last weekend from the BBC presenter Chris Packham and his crowd. As it made a few newspapers, I thought I should just share my insights with you about it. Every opportunity I get in the House of Commons, I look to make the case for better funding of our police service. I did so again on Wednesday last week because we are low down the list in terms of
MP for West Dorset Chris Loder
government funding (40 out of 41) and it needs to be higher. We only have three people in our rural crime team for the whole county and I was surprised to see that such a common-sense
blackmorevale.net
