THE Boundary Committee would like to offer a warm welcome to the new unitary authorities in the county – Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester – which start work this week.
We're working at the moment to decide the electoral arrangements for both authorities and your readers' views can help to inform our decisions. We’re currently running a consultation to decide how many councillors should sit on the new councils in future.
We’d like to hear views from everyone across Cheshire. Your readers can find out more at local libraries or by clicking on the review for your new council area on our website at www.boundarycommittee.org.uk.
You have until April 6 to tell us what you think, but everyone will have another opportunity to submit their views later in the year when we're deciding what areas each councillor should represent.
ARCHIE GALL
Director, Boundary Committee for England
Leader’s farewell to city council
AS CHESTER City Council comes to a close on March 31 and I retire from local politics (only briefly I hope) I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all the residents of Chester, and especially the residents of Mickle Trafford ward, for all their support over the years that I have represented them as their local councillor and latterly as the leader of the council. It has been a great privilege.
I could not have done my job without the support, loyalty and commitment of the excellent staff at Chester City Council. It is because of their hard work and dedication that Chester is an ‘excellent authority’. I wish them all good luck for the future.
I would also like to wish the new authority, Cheshire West and Cheshire, the best of luck for the future as it embarks on this new and, hopefully, rewarding journey.
To my fellow councillor's – thank you, it's been great.
CLLR MARGARET PARKER
Leader Chester City Council
AS MY time as a Chester city councillor has come to an end after nine gratifying years, I would like to thank all the residents of Saughall Ward who have so kindly supported me.
It has been a great privilege to serve them with the aid of the capable and dedicated officers of the city council, to whom I also wish to express my thanks. May I also offer my very best wishes for the future to those councillors and officers who will now be part of the new Cheshire West and Chester Council.
CLLR JEANNE STORRAR
Gas pipeline is a lesson for us all
IN LAST week’s Chronicle Cllr Adrian Walmsley ignored the issue I was raising about the standard of repairs done by utility companies in Hoole.
Councillor Walmsley should get out more and see what really goes on. One utility company has been excavating all over Hoole these last few months and I notice they have returned to dig up patches they only dug up a couple of months ago. Presumably they didn’t complete a proper job first time! Residents have to put up with all the disruption again.
It’s time utility companies put something back into the communities they disrupt. So, for example, part of Lightfoot Street has been closed while a utility company performed yet more excavations. The opportunity might have been taken to replace some of the notorious Lightfoot Street road bumps – perhaps the most hated traffic calming measures in Chester – with some of more modern design. But no, the opportunity was missed.
COUNCILLOR BOB THOMPSON
Hoole All Saints
Fighting fund for Chester Gateway
WE ARE all agreed it is a total disgrace Chester no longer has either a theatre or a cinema. So isn't it time you set up a fighting fund to campaign for the Gateway to be refurbished as a theatre? And why not the Odeon as a cinema/arts centre?
The city should do it on its own initiative, but given its utterly philistine attitude to the arts in the past, I suppose there's not much hope of that.
I'm willing to kick off any campaign with a £100 donation towards the formation of a Bring Back the Gateway movement. Any takers?
Richard Vaughan-Davies
Dee Lane, Chester
