Flooding - good news - well... maybe?

I awoke this morning to news that the Government is investing in 25 innovative schemes to tackle the scourge of flooding. And (excitement) that there is a Buckinghamshire project! 

Apps alerting residents to flooding, permeable road surfaces to improve drainage and schemes to protect vital sand dune beaches are among 25 new flooding and coastal resilience projects across England awarded funding today (Monday 29 March).

The pioneering projects, led by local authorities and delivered over the next six years, will receive a share of £150 million from Defra as part of the government’s new Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme and will be managed by the Environment Agency. They are part of the government’s long-term plan on flood and coastal erosion and a renewed effort to develop and test new approaches to tackle these threats.

The schemes will trial a wide range of different approaches to resilience tailored to local communities. These include plans to restore sub-tidal habitats like kelp beds, oyster reefs and sea grass near South Tyneside, as well as the installation of specialised property flood resilience measures and an app for local residents to tackle the threat of groundwater in Buckinghamshire.  [my highlight]

I am thinking: this could help local people affected by the risk of flooding. Good stuff! But, I scroll down and discover this:

Buckinghamshire: Trial for a new approach to groundwater flooding in Chilterns and Berkshire Downs, including plans for property flood resilience measures in up to 200 homes, groundwater monitoring (including innovative technology such as gulley sensors) and a Groundwater Flood Alert App for householders and businesses.

Even though Buckingham has had more than its fair share of flooding events in the county, the south of the county (again) is favoured... 

In the Buckinghamshire County Council: Local Flood Risk Management Strategy (2013 - 2018) there is this table: 

Why was the Chiltern chosen as the area to have this project?

I will be doing my best to make sure this scheme is brought to our area as soon as possible... If I am elected, I will be doing everything I can to ensure that the voices of North Bucks are heard loud and clear in the Buckinghamshire Council.  

Right now, the last thing Buckinghamshire Council needs is petty party squabbling

As lockdown slowly eases, it might be tempting to think that the UK and our local economy will spring back to where it was before Covid19 changed the world. Sadly, I don't think that will be the case: not only has the disease taken and damaged people's lives (in so many ways) but the pandemic has also damaged people's livelihoods hugely. It will take a long, long time for our families and communities to recover from all this. 

Local government has a massive role to play in helping to regenerate local economies. We need fresh and imaginative thinking within councils in order to develop action plans that will tackle this challenge robustly and effectively. What we don't need is petty squabbling between the political factions or activities designed to launch skirmishes against the other parties.

We need our councillors to be focused on one thing alone: what can we do now to create Buckingham and county wide communities that are healthy, wealthy and wise, in these unprecedented times? This means we need councillors who are:

• pragmatic (not dogmatic)
• collaborative (not tribal)
• open (not closed) to new ideas
• loyal to communities (not loyal to party flags or whips)
• prepared to do new things (not the same old, same old...)
• unchained and free from diktats (not subordinate to party machines or greasy poles)  
• willing to experiment & innovate (not stuck in the past)

If the new Buckinghamshire Council looks much like the last, it will not be as effective at helping local communities 'build back better'. Large majorities stifle fresh thinking and close down debate. All political parties are based on conformance and 'sticking together'. 

And so... we need more independent councillors: free to challenge, to create, to innovate, to nudge, to scrutinise, and indeed to upset the old ineffective ways. 

Ignaz Semmelweis was a young doctor in Austria in the 1840s. After careful observation and experimentation, he discovered that if doctors washed their hands before helping a woman give birth, it dramatically cut the number of deaths of both babies and their mothers. 

In the spring of 1850, Semmelweis took the stage at the prestigious Vienna Medical Society and extolled the virtues of hand washing to a crowd of doctors. His theory flew in the face of accepted medical wisdom of the time and was rejected by the medical community, who faulted both his science and his logic. Historians believe they also rejected his theory because it blamed them for their patients’ deaths. Despite reversing the mortality rates in the maternity wards, the Vienna Hospital abandoned mandatory handwashing.

 Semmelweis was drummed out of Vienna and a few years later his health began to deteriorate. 

In 1867, two years after Semmelweis’ death, Scottish surgeon Joseph Lister also propelled the idea of sanitizing hands and surgical instruments to halt infectious diseases. His ideas had their critics, too, but in the 1870s physicians began regularly scrubbing up before surgery.

I mention this story as I think illustrates something very profound. Not only is Semmelweis credited with starting 'Evidence Based Medicine' but his story also shows the vital importance of having people who can stand back from the 'accepted wisdom' of the time and challenge it: carefully, compassionately and coherently.

We need local councillors who can do this. We need independent thinkers... We need independent councillors..

Shocking increases in Management Fees

For a long time, I have been very concerned about how many new residents of our area are having to pay management fees on top of their ordinary council taxes. Residents on the new Moreton Road estates for example have to pay for grass cutting and play areas while residents elsewhere in the town get similar services as part of their council tax. As the new residents still have to pay their usual council tax, this is a form of double taxation as it is called. I think it is wrong just on that basis. 

More than this, these schemes are socially divisive. For example the Clarence Park estate residents pay towards the upkeep of the play space next to the river. This area will soon be used by the residents of the newer estate that is nearing completion, who won't be paying towards towards the upkeep. Unsurprisingly some of the residents of the older estate are fed up about this and I fear this is a matter which could become divisive. 

And then... on top of all this, it would seem these management companies are just exploiting the situation where they can increase the charges with impunity. There is no accountability or transparency. This cannot be right for public spaces, can it? 

Here is one example of the increases in the last year for one management company's fees. And as you can see, I have already raised this with our MP.

Once elected as your councillor, I will be doing everything in my power to sort this matter out. It will probably take some national legislative change. But there is much that can be done now by both the Buckinghamshire and Buckingham Town Councils.

The Mayor's Bear (an origins chapter)

I am in the process of writing a book about a Town Mayor called Roxie Riverbloom and a magimistical stuffed bear called Strumbold. I was inspired to write the story after opening the library at Lace Hill School when I was mayor and not being able to find a book about mayors to read to the children on the occasion. So I thought, I ought to write one. 

A couple of weeks ago I joined a book writing club and this morning's exercise was to do a 'writing sprint' where 30 of us got together on zoom and we each silently wrote some stuff all at the same time for 30 minutes. And then we talked a little bit about what we had written. It was fun.

I chose to write a new chapter for my book, which explains why Roxie chose to put herself forward to become a Town Councillor. I thought you might like to read it. (And you can read the whole story here if you wish. This chapter below comes in the middle of #6 when Roxie and her sister are driving north...) 

Why did you become the Mayor anyhow?

By two o’clock, Roxie and Soosh were speeding up the M40 heading north. It was going to be a long drive. But they had stories, music and each other. And Soosh had some probing questions for Roxie.

Strumbold sat in the back of the car and listened carefully to conversation between the two sisters. Even before he found his voice that midsummer’s morning, Strumbold loved listening to conversations. He enjoyed the up and down, the inside and out, and the ebb and flow of how people chatted. Everything began with a conversation, he thought to himself. He wondered what first conversation happened that led to someone walking on the moon, or discovering DNA or even, deciding to become a Town Mayor…

“So, Roxie, you’ve never really told me why you wanted to be a town councillor, let alone become the Town Mayor” said Soosh. “I mean, didn’t you have enough on your plate beforehand? Your four lovely children. Your home. Your job. Wasn’t that enough? Heck I struggle to keep my garden looking good. Why? Just why? I mean it’s great and all that, and I love the fact that my big sister is Town Mayor. But why…?!”

Roxie stared out of the window and looked back at her sister. “Well to be honest, I am not entirely sure. It just sort of happened. I mean it probably started with a conversation I had.”

Strumbold smiled. “It is always a conversation”, he whispered quietly to himself. 

Roxie went on. “You see, one day I was chatting with one of my customers. I had just booked her a holiday to Greece. Kos I think it was. Beautiful hotel with a sandy beach as soft as silk. And she mentioned something about the skatepark where her children played whenever they could. How they loved it, even with the scrapes and bruises. Just being there with their mates. And then she looked so sad for a moment and said ‘but guess what, the blooming council has decided to dig it all up and put in some flowers instead! My two are so unhappy about this. And I am really angry!’ I asked her what she was going to do but she said there’s no point, the councillors never listened to anyone. So I said to her ‘well if I was a councillor, I would make it my job to listen to everyone’. And she said ‘Why don’t you become one? You care about this town. I would vote for you.’ That was it really. I kind of had to do it then!”

A few metres of tarmac sped by as they settled into a silence for a while. Soosh chewed on her gum thinking about the story that Roxie had just told. “Yes, I get that. You have always wanted to change the world. But you didn’t manage to stop them digging up the skate park did you? I mean what is the point?”

“No, I didn’t. By the time I became a councillor a few months later. The job had been done. The ‘crumbling and dangerous skate park’ (so it was described) had been removed and petunias put in their place. I mean, petunias?! But I started a petition to build a new one and got over two thousand signatures. And now, there are plans to build a new skate park in a better place and all the young people are helping to design it. That one example is why I became a Town Councillor. I am not going to make World Peace happen. But I can make a small piece of it better!”

 

The Whole Truth? (about your Council Tax bill)

Is Buckinghamshire Council telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about your council taxes? Worryingly, I think not...

A few years ago, the Government required insurance companies to give you last year's price and as well as the new one they are asking you to renew at. It makes sense and it saves looking up last year's bill to make sure some clever wool is not being pulled over our eyes. I think it was a good change to the law. 

Should we not expect the same for our Council Tax bills? 

A few days ago - I received the bill for next year's council services. It listed various precepts including Buckinghamshire Council, the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner and the Fire service. (In Buckingham, they managed to miss off the Town Council from the listing. A poor error to make but I don't want to focus on that.)

What I want to focus on is the item labelled 'Bucks Asw' which means Buckinghamshire Adult Social Care. It is part of the Council's overall budget but has been listed separately since it was introduced a few years ago, to raise extra money for this essential part of the Council's services. 

On the bill sent to me, the ASW figure was listed as having a 2% rise. (Thames Valley PCC was a 6.9% rise by comparison.) But I looked at the figures and something didn't quite add up. I dug out last year's bill and discovered that in fact the ASW item has risen by a staggering 25.12% In other words, not the 2% being shown.

Did you know this?

I asked the Council to confirm that my maths was correct and a senior officer who came back to me assured me that it was. He went on to explain that the legislative guidance from central government meant that they had to present the figures in the way that they had. The rise in the ASW budget accounted for a rise of 2% in the overall Buckinghamshire budget. Hence that is what is shown.

I don't know about you, but this seems to be an example of, dare I say, creative accounting. The 2% figure is not exactly wrong (and is compliant with the legislation, I understand) - but it is not exactly clear or right is it...? 

If elected, I will be pressing for the bills next year to show all the arithmetic involved including the figures from the previous year (like insurance bills) so that people can compare one year to the next. (In fact, I will be doing this even if I am not elected!) 

A vote for me is a vote for transparency and a vote for making sure you know the full story about your council taxes! True Vale For Money means a great deal to me. If it it does to you too - please give me one of your three votes. Thanks. 

The Bridges of Buckingham (County)

One of my abiding and most treasured memories from the time I was Town Mayor was going on a roadtrip with the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, Sir Anthony Seldon. We spent two nights away in Wales, visiting the towns and universities of Bangor and Aberystwyth. We were researching how their 'town & gown' relationship worked. We returned with lots of ideas and later on established the Pontio Committee: a joint committee of the Town Council and the University, leavened with other organisations too. 

Pontio means 'bridge' in Welsh. It also means 'transformation' as well. But we stole the name, in truth, from a wonderful project in Bangor. It is the name of a beautiful arts and education building that straddles the hill between the town and the university there. (Go see it one day if you can - it is an architectural and cultural delight!)

The Pontio Committee has continued to meet, although not so much over the last year due to the pandemic and attention on other more critical matters. But do watch for its activities again as we come out of lockdown. 

The vision of the Committee is simply expressed: to create a place where everyone in the town talks about OUR university and everyone (staff & students) in the university talks about OUR town. 

Bridges have always been so important to me: I love their form and their meaning. 'Building bridges' means so much. We all need to find ways to reach across divides and build pathways between the gaps in understanding and experience that exist. Indeed the symbol of my consultancy business is a bridge. 

We are surrounded by some beautiful bridges. Here are some pics of them. Let's continue to build bridges!

Some of 'The Bridges of Buckingham (County)'

Creating the future for our local NHS and social care

Plans are afoot in Buckingham for what could be a radical change in how local health and social care are delivered to the folk of Buckingham and nearby villages. The problem is as members of the public we are being told very little and brought into the conversation even less. 

Surely, the people should have a say, and be part of the discussions about the future of our NHS and the local provision of social care to young people and vulnerable adults! 

• The plans to relocate town centre GP services to a new site on Lace Hill have been under discussion for years now but there still seems to be little known about the actual decisions
• The local Clinical Commissioning Group is deafening us with their silence on these matters even though it is their job to decide, with us, on how the NHS is shaped in our area
• However the CCG is about to consumed into 'BOB' - the new Integrated Care System covering West Berkshire, all of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. And I fear they will disappear down a rabbit hole as they sort out who has which job in the new structure. Meanwhile, what happens to us?
• On behalf of the Town Council, I had the chance to ask questions about some of these changes at a recent meeting of the Buckinghamshire Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee. You can see what I said and answers received here. I am still confused, however. 

What matters going forward from here is that the whole population of Buckingham and nearby areas should be involved and engaged in shaping the future of our health and social provision. This is something so important to us - we must not be kept out of the conversation! And there are plenty of ways in which can happen - including public meetings, surveys, whole system engagement events and so forth. 

My fear is that the deals will be done behind closed doors and we will eventually be 'told' what is happening... Or else just given a matter of weeks to respond to a fairly hardened plan where there will be little wriggle room...

As your councillor I will use every ounce of influence that I have to ensure that our community is actively involved and engaged in shaping the future of our health and social care services. 

Indeed if we want to have a healthier community - we all must be! 

the original front door to the Buckingham Community Hospital

Women are feeling less safe on our streets: what are we all going to do about that?

Three years ago, I asked the people of the Buckingham: What Matters to You Facebook community how safe they felt to walk across town - the thread is linked below. Just recently, people started adding their answers again. Here are the results:

For the 120 women who have answered the Q in the last few days, the average is 3.30 (Where 1 is "Very Safe" and 6 is "Very Unsafe"). For the 32 men who have answered the average is 1.14

3 years ago - this was the result: there are 200 respondents - with an overall average of 1.76. Looking at women (114) and men (86) separately: male average = 1.30 while the female average = 2.33.

So things appear better for men (they feel safer) and significantly worse for women (they feel less safe than 3 years ago).

For me: 

• I am going to campaign for more street lighting 
• promise I will not walk on by if I see a man or group of men seeking to intimidate a woman 
• talk more to my women friends about this and try and understand more 
• challenge misogynistic or or sexist comments 
• consider what can be done when planning new developments to make those streets feel safer 
• talk to the police to see if there are any hotspots for where matters appear worse 
• ditto - listen to women on the same question 
• be more aware of my how my presence on a street at night might impact on women nearby 
• continue to think and write about all this stuff...

What about you: what can you do? 

(PS: My letter on this subject was published in the Advertiser today (19/3/21) - you can read it at the bottom of the blog post below)

Campaign Leaflet (Buckingham East - for Buckinghamshire Council)

 

As your councillor, I will:

• Constantly listen to the concerns, aspirations and challenges being faced by the residents of Buckingham East, and do whatever I can to help
• Focus on: pothole innovation | using Council purchasing to boost local business | more transparency | louder voice for parish/town councils | more clean/green energy | inequalities in schools and elsewhere | addressing loneliness, fuel poverty and other factors affecting well-being in our communities | making our streets & homes safer
• Without fear, favour, dogma or obligation, always put the people and communities of my ward first on all matters including planning, social care, education, finances and beyond into every corner of Council services
• Use all my creativity, passion and insights to search for and find innovative ways to tackle the difficult challenges ahead, post pandemic
• Forge alliances, exert influence, ask probing questions and challenge baloney (each as appropriate) in order to get the best results for the people of Buckingham East and the wider county
• Never lose sight of the need to achieve true value for (taxpayers’) money so that our place, our county, and our world supports well-being and prosperity for all

Working with and for the people and communities of Buckingham East

I was co-opted onto Buckingham Town Council in June 2011. I have been working hard for local people ever since as a councillor, community activist and social media moderator. I would greatly like to serve you as your councillor on Buckinghamshire Council 

Over the next months and years, Buckinghamshire Council will be making many  decisions that will affect the lives of thousands of local people as we emerge from the pandemic. For me, HOW those decisions are made, is almost as important as WHAT those decisions are. 

I believe that citizens should be at the heart of local politics. 

For the last 40+ years, I have been working in and with local government, with a career spanning housing, public health, learning disability, community safety, leadership development, commissioning and organisational change management. Throughout this time, I have been committed to what is called ‘Asset Based Community Development’. 

We are a community rich in many assets - kind & generous people, a beautiful & green environment, vibrant & supportive institutions (local businesses & our university for example), dozens of voluntary & community associations and social media that connects, surprises, challenges & informs… We need to have a council that harnesses all those assets. As your councillor, I will do all I can to make that happen.

All I want is a sustainable world, in which everyone can have dreams and ambitions and the wherewithal to achieve these. That is my politics in a nutshell. If that chimes with you, please vote for me. Thank you. 

Over nearly ten years, I have helped the Buckingham Town Council team become more strategic and more focused on delivering outcomes for the town. My contributions include:

• persisting with getting solar energy into our buildings (we are nearly there!) as part of our Climate Emergency strategy
• celebrating the birth of community nursing here in Buckingham more than 125 years ago by initiating a local health festival
• building stronger links between the Town Council and the University of Buckingham by working closely with the Vice Chancellor
• initiating the country's first ever 'Good Endings Fair' designed to help people plan for the future when they will no longer be around, overcoming some of the fear of death, wills and funerals
• campaigning on road safety in our town including the (then) infamous London Road roundabout
• working with and for young people to get a new and well designed skate park in place and other activities for children

Positions

• Councillor for Buckingham Town Council (BTC)
• BTC member of Buckingham Youth Centre management team
• BTC representative on the Aylesbury Vale Association of Local Councils executive
• Trustee of the Buckingham Almshouses and Welfare Charity
• Trustee of the League of Friends of Buckingham Hospital
• Volunteer with North Bucks Young Carers
• Founder and moderator of ‘Buckingham: What Matters to You’ Facebook group 
• Business: Jon Harvey Associates (leadership and organisation development) since 2008
• Author: Cracking Questions - To help you really improve Productivity (also available free as a podcast)
• Former NSPCC ‘speak out’ volunteer, youth mentor and school governor 

Index post: policies, principles, background

Here is an index of what the other posts say, to save you trawling / scrolling through everything:

Local policies & politics

• My campaign leaflet
• The really local issues that need sorting out! 
• What needs to change in Buckinghamshire overall
• My politics: what I stand for
• My time on Buckingham Town Council and why I am standing for election again
• Why I am standing for election to Buckinghamshire Council
• My thoughts about Lay-By rubbish - and why we need a new approach.
• We need to do more about women not feeling safe on our streets: results of a local survey and ideas for action
• How we should all be part of shaping the future of health and social care locally
• Are you getting the whole truth about your Council Taxes?
• Shocking increases in estate management fees
• Flooding - good news - well... maybe?
• Do you want a councillor led or officer led planning authority? (And part two of this debate is here)
• The Hustings! 

My vision, my values and a 'new' politics

• My vision of the future - the kind of place I want to live in
• Why we need to focus on outcomes - not just counting the beans.
• The real importance of delivering council services WITH not just to local residents
• We need to move away from tribal party politics & why I am standing as an independent
• Right now, the last thing Buckinghamshire Council needs is petty party squabbling
• Leadership, creativity and teamwork
• Protecting the Green Stuff! 
• It is all about outcomes! 
• Ten minutes to stop tool thefts.

Who is Jon Harvey?

• Selection of news stories and letters to the local paper I have written
• The organisations I belong to and support
• Our place of beauty!
• The Bridges of Buckingham (County)...
• The Mayor's Bear: a children's story (+) 

Details about the elections happening on May 6th

• Time to consider - time to vote for your independent voice!
• Details of how many votes you will have in the forthcoming elections
• Maps of the local ward boundaries

Lay-bys need bins!

When I drive into Oxfordshire, most of the lay-bys I see have rubbish bins. As a consequence, their accumulated rubbish is minimal. Why doesn't Bucks do the same? Yes it would cost money - but think what it does to people's well being. None of us want to see rubbish. 

Here are some pics from lay-by on the A421 just as you approach the town from the west. Is this how we want visitors to our town greeted..?! 

As your councillor, I will be pushing for a change in practice so that we get bins - and less rubbish! 

It is what you do AND the way that way that you do it...

As I indicated below, the how of local government is much more important that it is often given credit. Public services can be delivered to the public or they can be delivered with the public. 'With' means partnership, co-design, and co-production. 

But of course, what you do is critical. But often when people think of the 'what' they think only of the announcement or the policy or the service being delivered. This isn't really the 'what'. 

The 'what' of all government, including local government, are outcomes. In other words it often happens that local and national government showcase shiny new policies and services (hurrah) with good intentions about these making a difference to people's lives. But... (and it is a big, long and loud but...) there is then precious little measure of whether these intended differences (the outcomes) do in fact happen. 

The only real measure of whether a policy or service is working is the lasting impact on the lives of citizens - the outcomes. Sadly these outcomes are rarely measured properly and scientifically. In fact they are often not measured at all. 

For example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has today announced in his budget a £19 million package in the budget to tackle domestic abuse amid soaring incidents in lockdown. In vastly overstretched services for women suffering such violence, this money will be welcomed. But, what is it designed to achieve: how will it reduce the problem, how will the women affected be helped in the short and long term? Will we see a reduction in such abuse? Or is this money merely papering over the cracks. I don't know. But I what I suspect is that the long term outcomes of this investment will not be properly assessed. 

Likewise, Buckinghamshire County needs a far greater focus on evaluation and the measurement of outcomes. Indeed, in my view, it needs to think about outcomes far more when it comes to using its resources for the good of the County's residents. 

This outcome focus is something I would aim to boost as your councillor. True Value for Money can only be measured when outcome thinking infuses all fiscal decisions and council services delivery. 

it's about more than just counting the beans...

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)

Typically, politicians want to talk about their plans and their policies - and what they are going to achieve for the people they represent and what they have already delivered. And so on. And I have done this in the posts below. 

But with this article I want to talk about something that many politicians shy away from because they imagine themselves to be the generals, choosing the next hill to be captured, the next battle to be fought. It is then up to the junior ranks to get the job done. I think political leadership is about far more than that. 

I want to talk about how communities are improved for all. I want to talk about how I think councils - specifically Buckinghamshire Council and Buckingham Town Council - should operate. 

All this comes back to how local councils see themselves - and in turn, how local citizens see them. How do you see your local council, be it the Town/Parish or County? Are these bodies

• providers of services in exchange for the council tax you pay?
• an agency trying to improve the well-being and prosperity for local communities?
• regulators who use laws (like planning or environmental health) to control what happens around you?
• interfering 'busybodies' who should get a life and leave people alone? (!)
• arguably, all of these, at various times...? 

In your relationship with these councils are you simply a customer / consumer / purchaser of these services? And if the services are not done as they should be (eg failing to collect your waste bin) then you rightly complain to the service provider directly or to your councillor. In other words, you see the councillors mainly as managers of complaints? 

Or do you see the councillors as people who shape all these services independently of you? You trust them to get on with the job of driving up efficiency and driving down the taxes taken. Your job is mostly to vote every few years for people who broadly agree with you and then let them get on with it? 

If so, this makes you a customer and occasional voter. And many councils treat their citizens just like this and often expect no more. True, there is the odd time where some consultation is carried out to test people's opinions. But more often than not, the councils would rather leave people alone. Meanwhile the councils are happy to be left alone and get on with the business, by a mostly happy bunch of 'customers'.  

My view (and please forgive me for taking a while to get to this point!) is that councils can and should be far more than this. Councils should engage in ABCD:

"Asset Based Community Development builds on the assets that are found in the community and mobilizes individuals, associations, and institutions to come together to realise and develop their strengths. This makes it different to a Deficit Based approach that focuses on identifying and servicing needs. From the start an Asset Based approach spends time identifying the assets of individuals, associations and institutions that form the community. The identified assets from an individual are matched with people or groups who have an interest in or need for those strengths. The key is beginning to use what is already in the community. Then to work together to build on the identified assets of all involved." (https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/asset-based-community-development/ - where there is much more information there about this philosophy) 

This casts the roll of councils as facilitators, organisers and nurturers of community well-being. In this model, citizens are co-producers of a society in which people are healthier, wealthier and wiser... 

Much of what both Buckinghamshire Council and Buckingham Town Council currently do is about this. But there is much, much more than could be done. If you elect me, I will be using my influence to help nudge both councils into becoming ABCD Councils. 

Why?

Because so much more can be created when councils and citizens work together, in a deep partnership, to co-produce the kinds of communities we all want. I want our communities to

• thrive and buzz 
• raise young people to be great and optimistic 
• have greener footprints
• have less crime, fear and loneliness
• be filled with vibrant and profitable businesses 
• be healthier, enjoying all that our towns and villages have to offer 

I think we are under-using our assets and creativity. I think we can make all this happen. If you think so too, please vote for me and we can work on this together. 

People working together to shape better futures for all

How many votes?

For Buckingham East (Buckinghamshire Council), you have up to three votes to cast. I am asking for one of these.

For Buckingham South (Buckingham Town Council), you have up to eight votes to cast. I am asking for one of these. 

Thank you. 

Further information

For this year's election to the new unitary Buckinghamshire Council, 3 councillors from each of the 49 wards around the county will be elected. This means there will be 147 councillors in all. This number is likely to reduce as the Local Government Boundary Commission for England conducts its review over the next couple of years. How many councillors do you think there ought to be?

Buckingham Town Council is made up of 17 councillors: eight from Buckingham South, seven from Buckingham North, one from Watchcroft and Highlands and one from Fishers Field. The latter two wards were an electoral artefact of the old redrawn AVDC boundaries. They will disappear soon and the town is likely to return to two wards. There is some debate about whether to increase the number of councillors by between 2 or 4 seats as the town is growing. Watch this space... (And what do you think...?)