standing down from Parish Council

Written: 07/03/07

It's election time on Milton Parish Council in a little under two months. It's not as bad as it sounds, we've not actually had an election here for the whole council in a very long time, in fact the usual problem is finding fifteen people willing to stand at all. So they all get in.

It wasn't that way in November 1997 when I first stood for council. At that time two parish councillors had resigned. Normally the council would co-opt but for a variety of reasons councillors decided a bye-election was for the best so ten of them asked for an election to be help.

Four of us stood. Beth and I were new to the village then, we'd only been here for a year and a half and I didn't know that many people so I had this leaflet printed and the day before the election I took the day off work and personally leafletted every house on the Rowans and Sycamores.

That evening friends of mine came to the rescue and turned out to leaflet the whole of the old part of the village in return for snacks and beers all round on their return. So the only part of the village we didn't leaflet was the Humphries Way/Froment Way estate.

At the count that night we watched while the papers were stacked up. I'd been warned beforehand by my neighbour that as a newcomer to the village, standing against people who'd lived here much longer, I shouldn't be disappointed when I failed to get on.

I won. Not only did I win but I got the highest number of votes.

The moral for me is that leafletting does pay. In a village like Milton, where much of the population is transitory now, no one actually knows that many people. Certainly at least one person said that they voted for me because they didn't know any of the candidates and I was the only one who had bothered to leaflet them.

Since then I've served two full terms on the council. I've been village tree warden, chairman of the cemetery committee, and chairman of the maintenance committee which is responsible for everything that ensures the village looks neat and tidy. Shortly after my stroke I took on being chairman of council (something which, in retrospect, was probably a slightly barmy thing to have done, but seemed like the right thing to do at the time), a post I held for two years and I've been vice-chairman for the last three.

Which brings us almost up to date. By last Autumn I was finding that I was no longer getting any pleasure out of parish council meetings. In fact, worse than that, I was often ill on the day after a meeting. Sometimes for several days.

Speaking to a good friend of mine who's a City councillor she said she thought being a councillor went in three phases. When you first join you think you're going to fix everything and you know all the answers. You don't of course but if you survive then you enter the second phase where you understand your limitations and get stuff done. Finally you get to the point I'd reached now, where the downside starts to outweigh the good and it becomes a chore. (She's at that stage too, she's standing down next year after eight years on the council.)

So I decided it was time to think about finding some other way to serve the community. I had done some research and been to talk to some people late in 2006, but then the sky fell on our heads on 14th December and saving the park has become my priority. It looks like it might be for some years yet.

So after nine and a half years I'm not going to stand in May. It'll be a wrench. I've made some good friends through being a parish councillor and although I'll still see them about it won't be the same without a common interest. But it is time to move on and the council badly needs some new blood.

Which brings me to my closing point. If you've got this far and are still reading and you live in Milton and especially if you are from a group which is under-represented on the council (so young or female or not white caucasian) then please go think about standing for parish council in May. You can find information on how to do that here.
 

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