Cllr Mike Schofield is an Independent County Councillor for Harlow & St Georges.
From Mick:
As the “Local Harrogate Town Council election looms and the “Mainstream Parties” start their assault on the electorate for their grasp power I feel compelled to give my opinion and reasons why I will not be standing.
It has been widely reported that the soon to be new “Harrogate Town Council” is to be in effect a “Super Parish Council”. As I am aware “Parish Councils” do some fantastic work within their communities, “Local Communities”. On the whole members come from within that Parish and by large are non-politically led. By being non-politically led you see more “Collaboration” and less “Conflict”
Harrogate I am afraid is set to be one of the biggest “Political Footballs” in the UK in my honest opinion and please allow me to explain why.
Harrogate and Knaresborough currently have a Lib Dem majority ACC and a Lib Dem MP
North Yorkshire Council is marginally a Conservative majority and therefore Conservative Executive
York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority is Labour led.
I would hope that residents can start to see where I am going on this. As can be seen from National Politics there is little if any “Collaboration” between these three Political Parties.
Therefore my question to the fantastic residents of my beautiful home town is “If the town Council is politically led do you really believe it will come to benefit the town”?
We are heading to the polls not knowing what powers will be granted by the Executive of the North Yorkshire Council. They are extremely and purposefully vague over this by claiming that they will discuss with the newly formed Council what powers they want and then set out what powers they can have.
I personally worry that if the Town Council is Conservative led then it will be looked after and given easier more engaging powers that make the Conservative Party to look good and great whereas, if another Party have control then they will be given more difficult and negative powers in order to make them look incompetent.
It is of my belief that these elections should have representatives of local groups such as the recently defunct “Hapara”.
“Hapara” were the “Harlow and Pannal Ash Residents Association” who did mazing work in their area and acted as a non-official Parish Council often lobbying myself as the local NY Councillor on many issues and worked well together with myself and my predecessor. They were one of my “Checks and Balances”
Therefore my second question is “If the same faces stand for the Town Council that are currently on the NY Council who do you think will be holding them to account?”
Without checks and balances we are very close to giving up our voices on the ground level and in our communities.
I urge local groups in every area of Harrogate to consider standing candidates promoting what they bring to their areas and how they want to help improve their communities showing the “Mainstream Parties” that the local people really do care about real local issues.
Yes I stood as Lib Dem at the NY Elections and soon became Independent and am sure am opening myself up for criticism but I would not be doing my best for the Town if I did not ask the residents to think about this election and how a Harrogate Town Council will be made up.
