RESIDENTS of Warrington apparently totally ignored a six week public consultation on the future shape of the borough council.
The consultation was announced in September – but no comments were received from the public.
Now the council will formally make a decision on its future executive arrangements next month.
The council is required by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act to consult about what system of governance is used in Warrington.
There are two options.
In the first, the council would have a leader and cabinet as at present, but the leader would be appointed for a four-year period rather than annually as at present.
In the second option, the council would have a directly elected mayor and cabinet. The mayor would not represent a ward in the borough and would be elected for four years.
As there were no comments from the public, the council decided on November 1 to go for the first option and next month will be asked to formally confirm this.
Once this is done, the new system will come into operation three days after the local elections in May.
The proposal documents are available for public inspection at the Town Hall and a copy of the report can be accessed via www.warrington.gov.uk from December 3.
Further information can be obtained from the head of democratic and member’s services, Warrington Town Hall West Annex, Warrington, WA1 1UH or by emailing [email protected]
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RESIDENTS of Warrington apparently totally ignored a six week public consultation on the future shape of the borough council.
Public ignored six-week consultation
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
13 Comments
Perhaps the public didn’t expect the council to listen?
or paerhaps no-one knew about it or what it was all about
192,000 residents live in Warrington, how the council did not get one response from the public is unbelievable. Would it be possible that the request for consultation was not advertised correctly or made available in enough places. Someone is not doing their job properly.
Well of course it wasn’t advertised. This is how the “elected” members behave. They hide consultation documents away from the public so the public do not voice their views. Look how they hide the consultation documents for Walton Hall! That way the councillors can carry on doing exactly what they want to do to suit their own and their party agenda. This town should be run by non-party affiliated councillors who don’t behave like children and disagree with however is in power because they wear the wrong colour tie; regardless of whether it benefits the town. Then they congratulate each other on what a great job they are all doing and accept their 5 star awards for box ticking…. Scandalous
Is there ap olitician – national or local – anywhere that you would trust?!
My dictionary defines consultation as “the act or process of consulting”, which in turn is defined as “1.a. To seek advice, opinion or information of: b. To refer to: 2. To take into account; consider:” Despite my being a council tax payer in the borough, and being on the electoral role, AND having corresponded with both council departments and individual councillors via email – all of which mean that the council know EXACTLY how to contact me – I have not been referred to, nor has my advice or opinion been sought. It’s difficult to see then how the opinions I would have expressed if asked can now be considered or taken account of. How then can the council possibly consider their “consultation” to have been successfully completed? They have consulted nobody, and the whole exercise appears to have been nothing more than a smokescreen.
The consultation was announced in exactly the same place on this website on 24th September, and probably elsewhere as well. So how come all you moaners didn’t spot it then?
So if we didn’t happen to check this website on a particular day, we lose our right to a say? Since no replies at all were received you obviously didn’t comment yourself either, Emanon. And the general point still stands. Any “consultation” which evokes absolutely no responses can only be considered to be an abject failure on the part of those who organised it.
This may have passed you by…but not everyone has a computer or access to one or know how to use one, your comment is infantile.
So the people who hadn’t got access to the Consultation won’t have access to today’s post. They also wont see your infantile “infantile” comment. What a wasted effort.
??
The topic was actually a thread on the forum as well – so surely somone could have bothered to comment?!! apparrently not!
Much more preferable for the serial whingers to criticise the lack of response than actually respond.