My Latest Column in the Tamworth Herald
View From the Council - 11.04.24
Cllr Thomas Jay
As you may have noticed, we are fully into local elections period now. This means that we see the number of council meetings reduce for the next month or so, as focus is on the campaign. This doesn’t mean work stops, however, it just means the public facing meetings reduce. All of the good stuff being worked on is still being delivered as I write, such as the imminent demolition of the buildings in the town centre as part of the Future High Streets Fund project.
We do have a meeting of my Cabinet tonight, but the only substantive item is excluded from the public. As I’ve said before, this doesn’t mean there’s some kind of big secret. It’s just simply that the item being discussed is not yet at the stage to share with the public, and if we did that it could jeopardise our approach – as simple as that.
As we are into the election period, I would urge each and every one of you to read through the campaign literature that is delivered through your doors. We spend a lot of our own time and money on making these, to ensure you have the relevant information to make an informed decision on who to vote for. But, a word of warning, be careful with what you read and compare and contrast. The literature that I’ve seen from our main opposition, for example, just essentially pledges that they will deliver what we, the Local Conservatives, are already delivering. But why vote for the tribute act when you can simply keep the real thing? We are already:
• Committed to a public facing front desk in the town centre.
• Committed to events to support our businesses.
• Delivering the £40M town centre regeneration.
• Fighting for what is right for our Town, such as against the use of hotels for anything other than tourism and against houses on our borders.
• Looking after your tax payer money, with our share of the council tax never increased by the maximum and in stark contrast to Labour-run bankrupt Birmingham.
We’re delivering and we want it to continue that way. With people satisfied with our town, in general, then it appears that the public feel that way too.
In other news, but in the spirit of ‘delivery’, I wanted to congratulate our Town’s football team for their fantastic achievement of winning the League and securing promotion – the double, as that’s two promotions in two seasons. We will be lighting the Castle up red in honour of their fantastic achievement – well done!
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