Local Elections

[Dave]

Depressingly I always seem to be voting against, not for candidates.. I just end up with the least worst.  

Me too.  I'm lucky in that I happen to live in Marple North, where there is a new Lib Dem candidate, a Mr Abell.  I know nothing about him, except that he isn't tainted by the past, as the existing Lib Dem councillors are.  So I guess he'll probably get my vote.  The triumph of hope over experience......

The alternative being not voting which leads to the worst possible outcomes (eg. Nick Griffin being elected in Manchester)

I read the other day that the delightful Mr Griffin is not expected to regain his seat as one of our MEPs.  So there is some good news around, anyway.  

[amazon]

The council has a website where you can send complaints about potholes and can even post a picture of the offending hole. The ones I identified were fixed within a few weeks which I thought a reasonable response time. However, if potholes are your main concern, maybe you are in the privileged position of not having to worry about cutbacks to other council services on which many people depend. A damaged alloy is irritating, but let's put it in perspective. Old people's care, facilities for the young,  these are the things to harangue local politicians about.

Yip with you on that one .

[tonysheldon]

The council has a website where you can send complaints about potholes and can even post a picture of the offending hole. The ones I identified were fixed within a few weeks which I thought a reasonable response time. However, if potholes are your main concern, maybe you are in the privileged position of not having to worry about cutbacks to other council services on which many people depend. A damaged alloy is irritating, but let's put it in perspective. Old people's care, facilities for the young,  these are the things to harangue local politicians about.

[TonyHoyle]

Depressingly I always seem to be voting against, not for candidates.. I just end up with the least worst.  This time I'm even struggling to do that...

The alternative being not voting which leads to the worst possible outcomes (eg. Nick Griffin being elected in Manchester)

I'm not sure why they all mention potholes... I'd expect the stance on them to be more or less the same across candidates (unless one of them is pro-pothole).  Same with council tax.  Saying they're for lowering it doesn't actually tell me anything useful about the candidate.  'The other parties suck' doesn't help much either.  How about some unique ideas for once?

[corium]

Whatever one thinks of the councils other services, on the three occasions I have complained about potholes they have been inspected & repaired pronto. Although the roads should never get into that state perhaps if everyone complained promptly & regularly (& lets face it even I don't every time) perhaps the costs would start forcing this up the agenda e.g. why are main roads  generally patched, some relatively unimportant side roads completely resurfaced?

As an aside I see someone has given the new anti skid coating outside the Norfolk Arms a good testing.

[simonesaffron]

Well maybe if you had a couple of expensive alloy wheels smashed by the potholes and have the council deny any responsibility you'd change your mind.

Fair Comment.

[mikes]

...I have to say that I personally find it disappointing if potholes really are a priority to the electorate but it seems that there is some evidence that this is the case.

Well maybe if you had a couple of expensive alloy wheels smashed by the potholes and have the council deny any responsibility you'd change your mind.

[Dave]

Yes, if that's the case (and I accept that maybe it is), it is disappointing and even a bit depressing that the  political debate has sunk to this level.   

And by allowing the debate to focus on such relatively trivial issues, we're in danger of letting our democratic representatives off the hook, and allowing them to escape debating more important (and difficult) things.  Who knows, if a candidate pushed leaflets though our letterboxes saying 'vote for me and I'll improve care for the elderly', or 'vote for me and I'll introduce integrated public transport', or even 'vote for me and I'll reopen the public loos', maybe we might all wake up and take notice, instead of staying at home on polling day! 

[simonesaffron]

It is interesting that the debate should develop along these lines.

A few years ago I spent some time in the company of two sitting Councillors. It should be said that they weren't Marple Councillors, they weren't even  S/port  Councillors but excepting for a few local nuances and some opposite extremes in particular locations I guess if you are a Councillor in one town then you are a Councillor in another.

I remember now they were both most adamant and unanimous that their mailbox was constantly filled with people complaining about highways issues. They said that unless there was a topical controversial issue that all people ever wrote to them about were potholes and yellow lines that they either wanting providing or removing on the roads.

So perhaps Wheels is right and that is what people are really interested in and through experience the Councillors know this so they target accordingly.I have to say that I personally find it disappointing if potholes really are a priority to the electorate but it seems that there is some evidence that this is the case.

[Dave]

Yes, planning is certainly one key issue which is more important (and topical in Marple) than potholes.  And then there's housing, waste collection, education, libraries, social services, transport, recreation, consumer protection, licensing and more.  Most of those things are, IMHO, more important than potholes in the road, and it's a mystery why the candidates don't seem to want to talk about them.

All the reseach shows that by large margin the public regard highways repairs as the most important issue facing local government

What research would that be?

[ringi]

Are there any candidates that will stand up for Marple getting a real supermarket and are willing to be possible on the development of Marple?   

[wheels]

We've had a few election leaflets drop through the door but the only issue they seem to mention is potholes! Now we're all in favour of fixing potholes, but it would be good to know where the candidates stand on the more important issues, such as education, libraries, parks, social care etc. No wonder the turnout at local elections is low!

Why do you regard those issues as more important Dave. What is important is what's important to us as individuals, I might regard highways maintenance as much more important than parks surly that's my right. All the reseach shows that by large margin the public regard highways repairs as the most important issue facing local government

[Dave]

We've had a few election leaflets drop through the door but the only issue they seem to mention is potholes! Now we're all in favour of fixing potholes, but it would be good to know where the candidates stand on the more important issues, such as education, libraries, parks, social care etc. No wonder the turnout at local elections is low!

[admin]

Managed to get a list off a very slow running council site, where it says "A list of candidates standing in this election will be available from Friday 23rd (sic) April 2014", which I assume is today.

The councillor up for re-election in Marple South is Susan Ingham.

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[admin]

No it's one vacancy per ward, has been since 1974 those elected serve 4 yrs with a fallow election year every 4th year, thus last year was fallow, 2017, 2021 etc.

So that's two then isn't it - for Marple, which is all I'm interested in. Who is up for re-election in Marple South?