Its Our County

On Thursday July 5th Ledbury people are being invited to vote for four places on their Town Council, from seven candidates. Our own Liz Harvey is one, standing for Its Our County (see her reasons for resigning and standing again on our news page), there are two UK Independence Party candidates (UKIP) and the others are standing as Independents, not part of any party.

Why did Liz resign only to stand again? Because last time round, in May 2011, there were not enough candidates to hold an election for the 17 places to be filled. Anyone who stood became a councillor and therefore, did not have a mandate of the people. Why not enough candidates? Probably because 17 is too many, whatever, more have come forward now, so now we have an election.

Issues for the elected are considerable, Town Plan, new housing, town events, to name but a few, but actually power is small. The Town Council has a budget, but it is not large. It has an advisory role, but planning decisions are mostly made by Planning Officers following policy or with big decisions, the County Councillors (58 of them) but more often, the Cabinet (seven of them).

Nevertheless, of course it is worth voting, it is always worth voting. So please make the effort to go down to the polling station and choose your candidate to represent your votes. You can choose four out of the seven.