MY FAMILY and I came to Andover from a slum in London in 1967 as part of the ‘overspill’. We arrived to a new home which had an ‘indoor toilet’ and, more importantly, a bathroom.

What a gorgeous ‘little town’ it was! It had, as they used to say, a baker, a shoemaker, a candlestick-maker.

It also had its own local train service to the south. In other words it was the typical country market town – it had character.

In those days, when we had town halls, aldermen and town clerks, local government was a dull, grey world of duty and drudgery, where every penny counted. And the majority of councillors were local people who genuinely wanted the best for the Andoverians.

Now it seems to have become a flashy soap opera of grandiosely entitled chief executives and cabinet members.

Thanks to strange divisions of powers, the only thing you can be certain of, if you contact your local council, is that they will say the problem you face is someone else’s responsibility.

We, the baffled public have turned away and lost interest.

Who knows the names of our local councillors? How many of us vote for them?

Like so much of modern Britain, it is both funny and serious. Those who control our taxpayers’ money are now so immune to public scrutiny and immune to public punishment that they act as if they are spending ‘fairy gold’. High street ‘Chinese balls’ spring to mind.

It will go on, either until the money runs out or until new local government reforms restore the proper local accountability lost over the last 40 years or so.

It was such a pity that more people did not vote, like me, to sweep out the ‘old guard’ who have had their time, for a new batch of non-partisan councillors who could restore our town back to us, who will serve in the vein of our long-departed councillors no longer at the beck and call off the rest of Test Valley borough.

Mr D Skinner, Bishops Way, Andover, via e-mail

 

Editor’s note: Harsh, or hitting the nail on the head? E-mail your views to newsdesk@andoveradvertiser.co.uk