Time to reconsider

This was recently highlighted at a meeting of the council’s planning and transportation committee by the fact that the chairman lives in Felpham and of the other four members of this committee, one lives in Rustington and another could not accurately state the names of roads in his ward.

Matters are even worse than I feared, as the dominant Conservative group on the council has shown that it is not interested in putting residents first.

At the last meeting of the town council, a change was made to the traditional start time for meetings of 6.30pm for the planning and transportation committee (but no other committee).

The reason for this was purely party-political, as the Conservative-controlled town council voted to change the starting time to 7pm, due to a clash with a regular meeting of Conservative councillors on Arun District Council, much to the inconvenience of town residents.

Indeed, at the last meeting of the planning and transportation committee, one lady turned up for 6.30pm, unaware that the start time had changed.

Furthermore, councillors could not have considered the effect of a later start time during the dark winter months.

By this action, town residents are being short-changed by Conservative councillors who were elected to both the town council and Arun.

If a councillor is unable to serve their electors properly on the town council, then they should not stand for election for Arun as well.

Some committed representatives can and do.

Certainly, I managed it without having to get the starting time for the planning and transportation meeting changed, but then, I have a strong attachment to the town.

Nick Wiltshire,

secretary, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton Liberal Democrats,

Kendal Close,

Littlehampton