Surrey County Conservatives

Making Local Committees more local (15th June)

Vice-Chairmanships for Borough/District Councillors are concrete evidence of localism & partnership in action.

Surrey County Council today approved the appointment of 4 Borough/District Councillors to the vice-Chairmanships of some of its Local Committees in a series of pilots that Andrew Povey, Leader of Surrey County Council, hopes will pave the way for bringing Surrey’s 12 local authorities closer together.

“I believe, and have always believed, that local residents expect local authorities to work together insofar as is possible to keep costs down and deliver services at as local a level as possible, and our Local Committees are the clearest demonstrations of the desire of Surrey’s 12 local authorities to work together for the benefit of Surrey’s residents and businesses.

I also believe that it sometimes local councils have to be prepared to give up powers to partners in order to achieve the best outcomes for those we represent.

To that end we have said to our partners in Elmbridge, Mole Valley, Reigate & Banstead and Woking that we will appoint Members from their councils, chosen by them, to the vice-Chairmanship or joint vice-Chairmanship of the relevant Local Committee. We would hope to extend this to our other local committees in time, but we will see how the next year goes, and I very much hope that the experience will be very positive.

I have always stressed the importance of localism, and I believe that the more locally you work the better the outcomes, and that a more local focus will be better for residents and businesses”.