Local government must change. In Bexhill we have a very disproportionate system where the Conservatives rule the roost with almost half of their number representing Bexhill Town (with no town council!) and the remainder of the district again mostly ruled by this party. Surely this must be seen to be grossly unfair. No wonder Rye just receives the crumbs.
The Campaign for a Democratic Rye – now CFAiR or Campaign For Action In Rye – came about just because of these anomalies. It looked at the area committee system, which many councils in this country have adopted. We fought hard for many years to persuade Rother and our surrounding parishes to embrace this system.
It would divide the district into three areas, with Bexhill, Battle and Rye being the three central points. A lengthy paper was written in 2006 by the then chairman, Professor Keith Taylor, entitled “Proposals for the Future of Rye”. It covered such subjects as planning, regional development, quangos such as the Rye Partnership, environment, transport and much more.
Some local district councillors claim that you cannot put the clock back to the old system prior to 1974, but by applying the area committee system it would not be putting back the clock; on the contrary, it would be moving into the future. An “area committee” would have complete control of its own fiscal direction and planning. All it would need for the system to be installed in Rother would be a majority vote at Bexhill. No Act of Parliament is required. However, as long as we have the present undemocratic system in Bexhill nothing is likely to happen. No wonder we in the CDR felt we were hitting our head against a brick wall!
As for town councils, they, too, should have more power. Planning should be decided at town council level, where local knowledge and having an understanding of the area is so important. The Rye Neighbourhood Plan will hopefully, if agreed, be a big step in this direction. Rye Town Council needs to less parochial and reach out more to the citizens of Rye. Communication by public meetings, press releases and encouraging more people to attend committee meetings would help. The public should be able to have their “pennyworth” at these meetings, which at present they can do only at a full council meeting – and even then questions are allowed only during the 15 minutes set aside.
At a national level, I believe we no longer have a two-party political system. Multiparty politics is here to stay and our leaders have got to come to terms with it. We cannot carry on having a “first past the post” system of elections where the minor parties get a disproportionate share of the votes cast. Proportional representation has to come, in whatever variant.
* Granville Bantick, 80, is standing down as a Rye councillor after 16 years: “My life outside my very close family can be be split three ways,” he says. “Politics, sport (rowing / triathlon/ running / cycling) and foreign travel. I worked with a bank in India, did national service with the RAF in Singapore during the Malayan emergency in the 1950s and have done sponsored bike rides in India, China, Vietnam and the Grand Canyon, raising a total of £10,000 for Mencap. I retired from the merchant bank NM Rothschilds in 1993 after 32 years. It was that year that I lost my wife Hester to breast cancer. In 1998 I moved to Rye and married Mona in 2007.”
Photo: Nick Taylor