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| The Lincolnshire flag flying in a Brigg garden |
Following a debate at a Lincolnshire Council meeting, the majority of councillors voted in favour of carrying out some form of consultation later this year.
The area governed by Lincolnshire County Council borders Brigg on Bigby High Road and at the far end of Westrum Lane.
Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, Coun Martin Hill, said: "The local election would have been a good chance to engage with people in Lincolnshire, but rather than doing a U-turn, the county council is facing a chicane as the district councils have put so many obstacles in the way!
"We never had any intention of spending £1m to hold a separate poll in polling stations, as suggested by the district councils, but I am pleased that the council are supportive of asking our residents for their views. I stand by the premise that it is right that residents have their say on the future of local government in the county. We should listen to the people we represent, not dictate to them.
“I believe the current system is complicated, wasteful and no longer financially sustainable. Without change, important local services are already being reduced and even cut entirely. The savings could also be used to keep council tax down, helping local families as they struggle to make ends meet themselves.
The county council suggests the current two-tier system in Lincolnshire comprises one county council and seven district councils.
"It’s estimated that a unitary system, could save as much as £150m over five years – or £82,000 every day," says the Lincoln-based authority.
Brigg Blog wonders, or even fears, that someone will take that a stage further and suggest having only one unitary/county council covering all geographical Lincolnshire - from Barton in the north to Stamford in the south?
Such a change would obviously spell the end for North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire Councils,
Up to 1974, Lincolnshire had three county councils - Lindsey (covering the north, including Brigg), Kesteven (mid-Lincs) and Holland (the south).
Bigger does not necessarily mean better. And what happened to "localism" that was supposed to be coming to local government?
When the Lincolnshire flag was first unfurled in 2005, 34 percent of folk liked the design: 66 percent didn't...
ReplyDeleteRed cross = St George
Yellow = Yellowbellies and ripe cereal
Blue and Green = Variously the sky, verdent fields and sea
Fleur-de-Lys taken from Lincoln's coat of arms...
Flag for Brigg?
Brown for tea, beer and coffee
Pink - nail and beauty shops
Red, Green and Blue = Tesco, astro turf, blue rinses and traffic lights..
Gold = the Angel
It's pleasing to see that someone has remembered the county council arrangement of the pre-1974 era. Hopefully, this will stat to hammer home the message to the "Back in Lincolnshire" supporters that things were not, in reality, quite as is perceived by some. It's also quite a turn around that there is now support within the L.C.C. for the disbanding of the district councils, something which was supposed to have happened in the 1974 reorganisation but objected to by the more conservative (with a small "c") people of the shire and district authorities of the day and not implemented by the then incoming government.
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