Borough council could grow

THERE are only a handful of senior politicians in Weston worth listening to and one is certainly Ken Lacey.

Tucked away on page 17 of last week's Mercury was a report about his suggestion for a borough council in Weston.

Ken is an ex mayor, district council chairman and leader of the Senior Citizens Forum and received an MBE for his services to the town.

On the plus side his suggestion could not have come at a better time with North Somerset, who are no lovers of Weston, wanting to relocate to Clevedon, if that's what they want good riddance. Weston has all the facilities in place to be independent and we could have our town hall back - see how North Somerset can cope without its biggest money earner.

However before we get carried away we must remember that it was Ken who initiated the Weston Town Council and I am sure he did not expect it to turn out to be a toy town council with very few powers.

The basis is there though and the town council could be the seed from which the borough council could grow.

We all know that many problems stem from the two hats worn by 17 councillors being both on North Somerset and Weston Town Councils. The leader of the town council states that it is too difficult to find suitable candidates to have separate council bodies - well that problem would soon be solved if we only had one borough council, after all there are a total of 38 representatives from Weston on both councils at present.

The question is how would the current councillors react to such a proposal? Would they be prepared to use a new broom or continue to be the dust being swept aside by the old broom of North Somerset? It would take time to make changes but also be very interesting following any developments.

GEOFF MALHAM

Clarence Grove Road, Weston