David Williams condemns the Tory plan to scrap local consultation meetings (Twickenham & Richmond Liberal Democrats)

David Williams condemns the Tory plan to scrap local consultation meetings

September 6, 2010 6:12 PM

• [Sep 06] David Williams writes: RICHMOND Council's Cabinet will, at their meeting tonight, agree to abandon the successful Area Consultation Meetings, which have been held twice a year since 1984. Area Consultation Meetings, for the last 26 years, have allowed residents to:

· Come to local meetings in their community;

· Discuss local concerns at a public meeting with councillors;

· Get updates on local issues and feedback from previous meetings; and

· Hold their ward councillor to account on what they have been doing.

The plans the Council were working on, fully supported by the Conservatives on the working party, wanted to extend the ACMs to get more engagement from the local community, and make local decisions at these meetings - genuine devolution. The cost of the full pilot might have been as much as £50,000 in a full year, but both parties on the working group agreed to keep the cost down much lower in 2010/11 until we saw how the extended ACMs would work.

The Conservatives are proposing to spend around £100,000 on sending out questionnaires. The Liberal Democrats planned to genuinely engage the public at regular decision making meetings in every ward. I will be encouraging the residents to reply to the Tory survey saying they want genuine devolution and engagement through ward decision making meetings, not just a very expensive questionnaire.

Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats: