In May Hounslow Conservative Group will be asking you to vote for us for many reasons.

One of these will be that we want to ask the Local Government Boundary Commission for England to cut the number of councillors by a third, leaving two per ward. Currently, Hounslow Council has a total of 60 councillors spilt between twenty wards – three per ward.  We strongly believe that 40 councillors is enough to represent local taxpayers. 

In the 18 years that I have been a councillor things have changed a great deal. The workload has reduced as we now have less meetings and technology has improved. Most of the borough’s residents now communicate with councillors using emails, mobile phones and social media, which helps councillors get through the workload quicker.

We need to address these changes by reducing our numbers. Given the necessary cuts in government funding for local councils it is important that councillor numbers are reduced too to show that we are indeed “all in it together.” How can we look our staff, who are facing redundancy, in the face if councillors aren’t sharing the pain too?

While it is not just about saving money there will be considerable savings as a result of shrinking to 40 - around £185,000 a year. 

These savings would largely come from a reduction in the amount of expenses being claimed by councillors. On top of this might not the standard of local councillors improve as there will be more competition for fewer places?

It will be interesting to see what others think of this proposal. Will, for once, the turkeys vote for Christmas?

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Would local democracy be served just as well if there were 40 Hounslow councillors instead of 60?