I WOULD like to add to the views of Howard Atkins in Echo letters, August 16th, on the matter of replacing part-time councillors with full-time commissioners.
I think personally there is no more important issue in local public affairs than getting this matter right. As it is the set-up we have has rolled on for generations, as handed down by the Victorians, that councillors are part-time volunteers.
This approach is just not acceptable or indeed credible anymore in our very busy and highly complex world.
It is entirely not tenable that people most often working full-time, bringing up families, can then turn their attention to multiple complex matters and come up with the right decisions.
They are trying to cram in a lot of work into a few evening meetings, instead of full-time commitment with adequate time to take up issues thoroughly and professionally.
In all better by far, I believe, are a dozen full-time councillors, or commissioners, than as it is with dozens of ad-hoc part-timers. All of these with very few exceptions sponsored by their parties. So what we end up with is part-timers cramming major decisions into evening meetings, and that along with all the political divisions and rivalries.
Is it then any wonder why councillors get many decisions chronically wrong, from Imax in Bournemouth to the mass close-down of public toilets in Poole? We need full time professionals, not part-time amateurs.
It surely could not be clearer -this approach is no longer fit for purpose.
STUART FLEMMING, Alder Road, Parkstone
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