Hugh Robertson supports move to cut Swale Borough Council election bill

Hugh Robertson, the MP for Faversham, has today written to Hazel Blears, The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to ask her to support moves to save council tax payers money.

Swale Borough Council has already asked to move to whole council elections from 2011, where by the whole council is elected every four years, to save money. The current system is much more expensive as a third of councillors come up for election every year, except in European and County Council election years.

For the same reasons, Hugh has also supported a move to abolish the local elections in 2010 so that councillors are not elected for just one year before the whole council comes up for election in 2011.

Hugh Robertson said, “I have always thought that the current system, by which one third of Swale’s Councillors are elected each year, encourages short term thinking and is expensive for local council tax payers. Even though it could work against us as a Party if we were in government, it is better to have one election for the whole council.

This is particularly relevant given the current economic climate. There is no good reason for local councils to spend unnecessary money on their own elections with so many other priorities elsewhere!”