4 candidates will contest 1 vacancy on parish council
VOICE OF THE FENS
Mayor James Palmer at Manor Farm, Stretham CLT in 2018 with then housing minister Kit Malthouse in 2018. He was accompanied by CLT chair Charles Roberts and the mayor's then political aide Tom Hunt, now MP for Ipswich - Credit: Archant
By-elections for parish councils rarely attract much attention – and certainly we’ve never heard of a public husting to listen to candidates.
But Stretham is different.
The parish council has a single vacancy and yet next Thursday there are four candidates for a single seat.
What has created such a buzz in Stretham is the parish council’s bid for a new community hub, how it will be financed, and to what extent the village has been consulted.
A lot of money is at stake.
And reputations, inevitably, are being publicly scrutinised and decision-making processes challenged. Not least because the new centre will be at Manor Farm where a new housing estate has provided, by way of a contra arrangement, a large number of community land trust homes.
But part of the commitment has always been provision within the site of a new GP practice. And that, thus far, has stalled.
Most Read
- 1 Council 'completely ignoring' worsening footpath issue, says hairdresser
- 2 Driver has lucky escape from Waterbeach car crash fire
- 3 Two combine harvesters catch fire in under 12 hours
- 4 Councillors scrape through in tight Ely by-elections
- 5 Football club hosting 12-hour non-stop charity kickathon this weekend
- 6 Driver cleared by reason of insanity over death of Louis Thorold
- 7 Three King’s Ely colleagues, Susan, Steve and Hazel, retire from roles
- 8 £9m testing firm hopes expansion can put city 'on scientific map'
- 9 Man taken to hospital after falling in city centre
- 10 Farmer ‘feeling low’ due to increasingly difficult working conditions
The parish council is entitled to do what it thinks best for its village.
Maybe, though, they might ask themselves if transparency remains at the heart of all of their decisions.
