All change at Amersham!By Nick Rose
No, not the station, but that civic building just round the corner, the place everyone loves to hate – the Council Offices. The 3rd May elections saw 14 departures and 14 new faces on Chiltern District Council – of which I was one. Particularly sad was the retirement due to illness of Tom Dodd who had been Cabinet Leader up until shortly before the election.
You might well wonder “what is the cabinet?” This somewhat pretentious title was not of the council’s choosing but was imposed by central diktat from Westminster. In common with virtually all councils, the old committee system disappeared about six years ago and now we have a ‘cabinet’ of six members who are required to make the major decisions and whose members have specific responsibilities. For reasons still unclear to me, I was asked to serve within the cabinet with responsibility for ‘planning, sustainable development and transport’.
I hardly dare mention the word ‘pothole’ for fear of a lynch mob appearing at Ballinger Bottom but it is top of my agenda. On behalf of the whole district, not just this ward, I have already made it very clear to Bucks County Council the dissatisfaction of residents; I will be meeting shortly with Val Letheren, BCC’s Cabinet Member for Transportation. There will be no overnight transformation but I am confident it is going to improve.
Another contentious topic, that of waste collection, is to be reviewed, to see what lessons can be learned from those areas where the new system of alternate weekly collections has already been introduced. This has to be good news and on a personal level I am keen to see kerbside collections of plastic bottles and cans. I shall attempt to persuade my colleagues!
I was elected to serve the community and I welcome comments from anybody; my telephone number is 837688 and my e-mail is nrose@chiltern.gov.uk. Please let me know if I can help in any way.