Working together

Yesterday evening I met Will Shropshire who is the new Babergh Councillor for Lavenham.

We discussed how we can best work together as District and County Councillors, alongside our new Member of Parliament, James Cartlidge.  Together we hope to help to resolve problems for individuals where possible to do so,  and also move forward some of the outstanding issues in the area. 

Many people are unaware of what particular functions fall within our respective areas of responsibility, and it has to be said that, particularly in respect of the two local authorities, the divisions can be pretty arbitrary.   The District tends to interest itself in matters of place and the County with matters relating to people.  Thus planning is one of the District’s principal interests and the County is concerned with Social Care and Education.   However the division is not that clear cut.  We both for example have responsibility for Waste (the District collects and the County disposes), housing issues are the remit of the District, and the County Council of course has responsibility for highways.

Most people when they have a problem don’t much care about these divisions of labour and so we aim to co-operate and to signpost residents to the right person to resolve individual issues.  We will also be working together on broader, more general concerns.

Our contact details can be found on the respective councils’ websites, or in my case you can use the contact details on this site.   James Cartlidge can be found care of the House of Commons!