THE COUNCIL’S opposition leader has called for rule changes to allow councillors to deal with problems in other areas.
Currently Redditch Borough Council’s constitution states members should not take on issues from other wards without prior consent from the councillors in the area concerned.
But Coun Juliet Brunner has questioned if the rules should be re-examined to allow for more flexibility.
She initially asked a question at a recent full council meeting, about what advice council leader Bill Hartnett would give to anyone who was contacted by a resident not in their ward and asked to deal with an issue.
Coun Hartnett stated the rules of the constitution and said he was ‘disappointed’ Coun Brunner had brought up the issue just a day ahead of a working party meeting to look into the rules governing the authority.
Coun Brunner then asked what would happen if the resident stated they had ‘no faith’ in their own councillors or wanted their issue to be dealt with by a woman.
She added: “What do the Labour party do when they are campaigning through the year in wards where there are no Labour council representatives and they receive requests on the doorstep?”
She said her group had never been passed on an issue from the ruling party and therefore she could only assume either the residents in areas where there were only Conservative councillors were ‘completely satisfied’ or Labour were ignoring the rules to take up issues themselves.
“We live in a democracy and can’t force any resident to deal with any one councillor or group.”
