Local elections 2018 - What does a Councillor actually do?

A local Councillor is elected to serve and represent their local community, mainly in interactions with the Local Council, but also with other public bodies such as the NHS, TFL, Thames Water, and The Canal and River Trust, to name but a few.  Sometimes public opinion is clear about a particular issue, but sometimes there are views on both sides of an issue, and in these instances it is a Councillor's job to try and broker an agreement that is in the best interests of local people.

As a local councillor, I have a lot of contact with local community groups including attending Tenants and Resident’s Association meetings, the Neighbourhood Police Ward Panel, local schools, local action group meetings, and also via Ward Partnership meetings. However, I also meet people who don’t quite understand what a Local Councillor does, or who say they are “not interested in politics”, but at the same time turn out to have quite strong views about issues like messy recycling bins, noisy traffic, parking, diesel surcharges, sports and arts sponsorship, cycle lanes, and other things.

This blog is intended to give a bit more idea of some of the issues I deal with as a Local Councillor, and suggest why it is worthwhile being a bit interested in local politics.

Disabled parking charges: A constituent came to see me in my surgery, telling me that the housing association running the estate his mother lived on had been wrongly charging her for the use of a disabled parking space for her car for several years - it should have been free. He told me that he had tried to recover the charges, which amounted to nearly £2000, but had been told that a refund was ‘discretionary’. I contacted the housing association, and the money was then refunded.

Collapsed garden wall: A constituent who was a tenant in a street property contacted me and told me that her garden wall was at risk of collapsing. Her garden had been full of scaffolding for two years to prop up the wall, and that the repair works had stalled because the repairs department couldn’t get planning permission to do the repair. I contacted the repairs department and the planning department, got them talking to each other, permission was granted and the repair completed, including using proper bricks to repair the wall.

Tenant rehousing: A constituent contacted me to say that she needed to be rehoused to a ground floor apartment because of trouble with arthritis in her legs, but that she couldn’t bid for a different home because she couldn’t get the extra housing points for her disability. I contacted the Housing department on her behalf, the extra points she was entitled to were awarded, and she has now moved to a ground floor flat.

Welfare of vulnerable service users: A number of residents contacted me about three years ago, concerned about the welfare of service users being housed in a sheltered housing facility for men with mental health problems , and who had also been through the Criminal Justice System. The service users were supposed to be rehabilitating, but appeared to be using drugs, were sometimes seen drunk and incapable in the locality around the facility, and were also sometimes seen begging quite aggressively at bus stops nearby. I arranged with the management to set up meetings with the local community to discuss concerns about the service users, and for a time things seemed to improve. I have been attending most of the residents meetings. More recently I had been receiving reports from residents further away from the facility of similar behaviour, and gained the impression that matters were getting worse again. I have since involved the neighbourhood police who have been working directly with the management to mitigate instances of criminal behaviour, and I have also involved the licensing department, who have conducted training with the local off license to teach them to decline to serve people who appear unwell, or who seem drunk or otherwise influenced by substances. I also held a lengthy telephone review with the CQC, who register the facility, and who are also reviewing the services at the facility. I believe matters are now improving again.

Noisy Kitchen Extract: A constituent contacted me about the pub next door to her which was running what seemed to be a noisy kitchen extract, which she could hear whirring from her house and garden all day.  It was obvious from looking at the duct that it was a bodge-up. I obtained a copy of the planning permission which stated that the unit should not be making noise that could be heard from her property. Unfortunately the planning officer dealing with the case was not very helpful at all, and so I advised her to get her own acoustic report carried out to demonstrate that the unit was too noisy. After the report was completed, planning enforcement officers then visited the pub and required them to apply for a new permission for the unit, with conditions attached which set the noise from the unit at 5db below background noise levels, and with an additional condition, which I suggested, that the unit should be switched off if it breached the permitted noise levels. We are waiting to see if the unit will now be adjusted to make less noise, but the resident knows that the planning permission now includes a sanction that will get the unit switched off if the pub doesn’t comply with the permission.

Hanover school Lollipop Patrol: I was contacted by parents of children at Hanover Primary School, concerned about the safety of the many parents and children that have to cross Danbury Street to get to the school, because of the speed that traffic was travelling along the street at the most popular crossing point near the school. Parents were concerned that whilst there was a Lollipop Patrol at the junction with St Peters street, there was nothing at the junction with Danbury Street. I had a road safety audit carried out at the two junctions, and it turned out that the safety rating at the St Peters Street junction did not justify a Lollipop Patrol, but that the rating at Danbury Street did justify the Patrol. So whilst there was no additional funding to provide a second Lollipop person, we had robust justification to move the existing Lollipop Patrol to the other junction, where the Patrol was truly needed. However, the lady doing the Patrol found it much more challenging trying to stop the traffic on Danbury Street, as a number of drivers and cyclists were just ignoring her, which was quite frightening for her and for parents. I was aware that there was funding available from the Mayor of London for improvements to the 'Quiet Way' cycle routes, one of which goes along Danbury Street.  I was able to secure funding to introduce some pavement buid-outs at the junction with Noel Road, which has made it much easier for the Patrol to safely stop the traffic.

These are just a few examples of the kinds of issues that I have got involved in as a Councillor.  There are some more in the blogs below.  I hope you find these issues of interest.