I live in a quiet street that’s blighted by the occasional tosser racing through using it as a short cut to beat traffic lights. The campaign for speed humps has been going for 30 years and has achieved nothing. Now there’s a vacancy on our parish Council and I’m tempted to stand.

Reasons to stand:

At a meeting I attended last year I learned an awful lot of tasty gossip about my neighbourhood.

If you want to change something you need to take action instead of moaning.

Reasons not to stand:

I would be selfishly interested only in my own street and nothing else.

Worse than this; my neighbours and friends would know I was a parish councillor and therefore small minded and nosey.

What does the panel think?

Have you ever been tempted to try morris dancing?

(Just trying to get a perspective on this)

What do you have to lose?

just think of the backhanders you could get off Tesco for using your influence to get planning permission for the new Tesco Metro store through?

I long suspected that’s all my local councilors are interested in

During the meeting I attended last year the councillors considered a couple of planning applications; I saw with my own eyes how astonishingly incompetent they were at this simple job. I even ended up interpreting some drawings for them because I could see they had got it so completely wrong.

Do it, why not? Next time there’s a vacancy I probably will purely out of interest and ‘getting involved’ a bit. You can always cry off after a years service knowing you tried.

Chances are, the reason you don’t have a traffic calming scheme is more to do with the technical people behind the scenes rather than because a local concillor hasn’t championed your cause yet.

They’re actually pretty ineffective and clueless.

Damn right; I got flamed over on another forum for suggesting that local councils were the last refuge for the incompetent.

No, the problem is that our street is around 100th on the county council’s list of deserving streets because we’ve only had one accident involving a pedestrian in ten years. By contrast certain areas of the local towns have traffic calming all over the place; thus we are victims of our own success in keeping our children off the road and teaching them not to trust in God.

If you want to change something you need to take action instead of moaning

I would ask for the local highways to visit the street with current incumbent to discuss the traffic calming options (humps aren’t always the best solution)

because we’ve only had one accident involving a pedestrian in ten years

Why not try a different tack? Maybe think about pushing some children under cars to massage the statistics a force the issue a bit?

Are there any unpopular ginger one’s on your road? That’s be handy

Would anyone vote for you ? Becoming a councillor requires at the very least, for people to vote for you.

And to be honest your particular interest in an “awful lot of tasty gossip about my neighbourhood” wouldn’t have me rushing to the polling station so that I could vote for you.

TopTip : I suggest you leave that sort of stuff out of your election material……..try to think of another reason why you want to be councillor 💡

Ernie’s right. I certainly wouldn’t mention that it was you who pushed all the ginger kids under the cars

There’s a quote about this…

*googles*…back in a min

There’s a quote about this…

Gingergeddon?

Something about local politics and sexual frustration…

As you can imagine, google is not very much help…

*turns safe search back on*

A friend of mine accidently became a county counciler. They didn’t expect to be elected at all but got a massive MP expenses protest vote. So they got an unexpected career change, and are quite enjoying it.

Ah here it is (not quite what I thought though)

C. Northcote Parkinson: It is now well known, however, that men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

TO be fair DD, that could apply to pretty much anything

It is now well known, however, that men enter… (insert random activity here)… solely as a result of being unhappily married

Killing random ginger kids does seem a tad extreme as a compensation for sexual frustration. I may rethink my suggestion

**** me! That’s it then, I may well be unhappily married but I ain’t going to make it obvious!

Sorry, I thought it was much funnier…it’s shit really.

I don’t think that becoming a Parish councillor will help you get your speed bumps.

But why not give it a go anyway?

You may well find that you get in on the nod. It’s not always the cut and thrust world of political dynamite depicted in the Archers. My neighbour got co-opted when they couldn’t get anyone else to do it.

I’ve thought about it – but I attended a council meeting once and I suspect the whole process would be quite incredibly frustrating and depressing. At the meeting I went to, most of the people voting on a really important decision on a major city centre redevelopment clearly hadn’t even read the report on what they were supposed to be voting on.

Apart from the Green guy no-one even bothered asking any questions, despite having been extensively lobbied by their constituents about various concerns with the project.

If you are doing it for selfish reasons then don’t – you will become very disillusioned very quickly.

I have considered it, even talked to the local councillors about joining at one time. It would seem to be a very closed world governed by petty rules that are designed to prevent almost everything and ensure that the status quo prevails.

Even my local councillors said don’t bother if you are going to try to change things.

Very depressing attitude, but they succeeded in putting me off joining their cosy club.

My interest arose partly because my son’s godmother is one of these incredibly energetic, bright, open yummy Mummy types who joined her PC and got a lot of small but good things changed in the village. She’s a good talker and a good persuader.

However my local PC has a reputation for laughable incompetence in the area and with members of the neighbouring PC and a couple of the councillors are half human/half compost, while there’s a third councillor who I really find hard to like. On top of that my job in Export takes me abroad from time to time.

Sounds like a bad idea then.

Doubt you’d have to get elected to a parish council – people always seem to be co opted around here, to make up the numbers.
Town councils are a step up the hierarchy and probably would require a bit of campaigning

Anyone I’ve known who has been in local politics, has or has soon turned into a self-serving, nauseous cock bag

Do you want to be the subject of that “tasty gossip”?

I want to live in a quiet street that’s blighted but the occasional tosser racing motorist legitimatly drives through using it as an short cut alternative route to beat avoid traffic lights, thining out the congestion on the busiest roads and generally helping with the flow of traffic. However I’m a selfish sod and dont want strangers driving on “MY” street, I should therefore like to force upon all motorist yet more speed bumps 😛

I was a parish councillor for many years.

Just remember: Being on the parish council not the same as being a councillor. The PC has NO REAL POWERS whatsoever when it comes to traffic. All they can do is ask the real council to do something, and if the real council want to they might.

At the meeting I went to, most of the people voting on a really important decision on a major city centre redevelopment clearly hadn’t even read the report on what they were supposed to be voting on.

That’s my experience too. In our case it was the planning board voting on a proposed windfarm that had huge local support. Even if they had read up on the paperwork, I’m afraid to say some of them were clearly too stupid to understand the points being raised in the meeting. It was embarrassing.