Bradley Stoke Town Council has reduced the number of sessions in its ‘Meet Your Councillor’ initiative following a lack of uptake from residents to a recently trialled scheme.
Constituents are able to attend face-to-face surgeries with their elected councillors to discuss local issues and raise any concerns they may have. The councillors then feed that information back to the Town Council who either take appropriate action or raise it with the relevant organisation, such as the police or the
council.
Since the local elections last May, a new scheme was implemented which doubled the frequency of ‘Meet Your Councillor’ sessions to twice a month, and rotated the surgeries around three locations to make them more accessible to Bradley Stoke residents based in different parts of the town.
However, during a review of the new process shortly before Christmas, it was noted that members of the public had made only eight enquiries during the five sessions that had been held between July and November 2023. One two-hour surgery saw no attendees at all.
As a result, the’ Meet Your Councillor’ surgeries will return to being held once a month, on the last Saturday of each month at the Willow Brook Centre, this being the location which is felt to have the highest footfall in the area.
The next two surgeries will be on Saturday 24 February and Saturday 23 March, between 10am and 12 noon on both dates. They will be held in the Town Square foyer of the Willow Brook Centre.