The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

How do we get the improvements we want for the village?

I spent around half an hour today speaking to a Horsell activist of another political persuasion who has in the past been successful in getting things done in the village. I won’t name her to prevent embarrassment (although if she visits the site she is more than welcome to post a comment confirming her identity). The reason I’m telling you this is because although it’s something I’ve thought about in the past – and committed to print as editor of The Resident - I wouldn’t want to take all the credit for this post.

We spoke about the responsibility of a community to take action to achieve the things it wants to get done rather than relying on the local authority to provide it to them. It’s not always a popular message – what on earth do we pay our council tax for, I hear you reply – but the truth is that if people have a vision for how their area should look, what services they want to see there and how these should be delivered, it is in these times up to them to do something about it.

I wrote in the The Resident that government would likely become ever more remote as councils merge and powers pass higher up the chain. I said that communities like Horsell would be left to take responsibility for their own care organisations, village facilities and for creating their own visions of the future. It was the latter point that we particularly spoke about today, especially in light of the Local Development Framework that I have written about before.

Should we simply stand by, answer the council’s consultation and allow the officers of the council, in consultation with the government and our elected members to map out our village’s future for us? Or should we rather create our own vision for what we want and task our councillors with fighting in council for that vision, regardless of convention perameters? And whose vision should it be – is it possible for Horsell residents to agree on enough to have a single vision of what we want our community to be?

We are blessed with good schools and shops in Horsell, as well as effectively our own town centre car park in Brewery Road. We also have a myriad of superb organisations from Scouts and Guides to allotments and amateur drama – all run and organised by generous, dynamic and selfless volunteers.

It’s not a question to which I have an answer but here is the heart of it – just how far are we personally prepared to go to make Horsell what we want it to be? It is often only when authorities are seen to make a mess of things that people begin to ask themselves that question and find a favourable answer. How much more could we achieve by asking it of ourselves on our own terms?