Owen Temple

I and my fellow ward councillors received the following email from my good friend Dominic Haney, Chairman of the Berry Edge Residents Association:

“ Dear Councillors of Consett North,

I am writing to you with regards to the Community Initiative fund set up by the council. As you are aware, there will be £20k per councillor in each ward, meaning a total of £60k in Consett North, which sadly all has to be spent on one project. I fear that there are insufficient mechanisms in place to ensure that every elector knows about this money. It hasn’t been well advertised (I think I remember seeing something about it in the local paper), and I feel that the only reason I know about it is because I’m quite active in local politics. Average Joe out there, however, may have no idea that there is money available to be spent on a project in the district. It is therefore a nigh on impossibility to make sure that sufficient people are consulted and contribute to the proposed project. I feel that the only suitable solution to this problem is to have a referendum. I applaud the council on its decision to have a referendum on the proposed unitary council, moving towards more direct democracy can only be positive. I ask if you would be supportive of a referendum on what the Community Initiative Fund money should be spent on?

The referendum would run as follows. A number of projects would be proposed, and the viable options would be the ones that are to the public in the ballot. A ballot paper would be sent out to every house in the ward with a booklet containing information on each of the proposals. Electors would then vote for what they feel the money should be spent on in order of preference by putting numbers from 1 to x. This would be a prefential ballot, similar to the Single Transferable Vote. The electoral system would then calculate the most popular option. The referendum would be a postal vote and could be conducted by the electoral reform society. Attached is an estimate of how much the referendum would cost, based on the turnout of the last local election in this ward. Alternatively the council could conduct the referendum.

I sincerely hope that you will consider this proposal, as it is a means of really getting through to the grass roots of democracy. It is a chance to truly spark a public debate and show people that our elected representatives really value our views and opinions. Otherwise I fear that only a certain section of the electorate will end up being consulted on this, and the rest will probably never even know about this scheme. It is time that more and more decisions were put to the public, in order to create the enlightened political culture that we seek. Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing your response shortly.

Dominic Haney

Chairman, Berry Edge Residents Association.”

 I have already replied to Dominic, and will post my reply in a couple of days. In the meantime please click on the comment label at the head of this piece and let me know what you think of his idea. That way I’ll find out how in touch or out of touch I am with what you think.