What Have I Been Doing Lately?

Although my blog posts have been slightly infrequent, I've been still been busy dealing with local politics. As a Rayleigh Town Councillor for the Victoria Ward, I still maintain an interest in both Town and District matters. You might have seen our Liberal Democrat Blog 'onlinefocus' which I regularly contribute to. At the Town Council, I'm a member of the Policy & Finance Committee, which I actively participate in. Helping to reduce the Councils expenditure on some of its core costs such as telephony, postage and IT systems by making recommendations to move to use local suppliers who were able to offer competitive rates over national companies. Costs have been significantly reduced. I'm currently on a working party to look at the Business Continuity Planning of the Town Council, after it was recognised that the District Council had handled their recent and protracted IT disasters very poorly. Although last year I retired from the planning committee, I still follow the work of the planning committee closely and have made recommendations, which have been adopted by the Council to reduce the work of the planning committee and also to hold the District Council (who are responsible for planning) to account on matters such as travellers. I have proactively been trying to publicise the work of the Town Council and made recommendations (which have now been implemented) to add additional notice boards around the wards. If there are any local issues that you would like to see the Town Council tackle please feel free to get in touch with me