As I wrote in the last issue, as chairman of the Finance & Policy Committee, lot of my time at the moment is being taken up by balancing the routine needs of the Council, aspirations of various Councillors and trying to foretell just how much money we should be spending, or setting aside, to meet the aspirations of townsfolk. Surprising as it may seem, most Councillors go into local politics either because they genuinely wish to serve the town, believe the existing incumbents are not performing as well as they could and that they could do a better job, wish to take part in the political ‘game’ or a mix of all three. I have been on a couple of courses recently to help me help your council help you.

The first was LAUTRAC 97 concerned primarily with waste and recycling although several other fringe meetings were going on at the same time. One I attended was concerned with how to promote the activities of local government by making best use of the media including newspapers and the Internet.
The use of the Internet was demonstrated by going on-line to various sites and the speaker, Penny Pitty, showed how a badly designed site could easily put people off (Ashlyns School take note). One of the delegates brought up his own councils web-site to show how they got involved. It seems that the council employed a contractor to produce a publicity leaflet for the recycling scheme they were about to introduce. The contractor suggested that as he was about to expand his business to start publishing on the net, offered to place this publication on the Internet for FREE. This was done, and as various statistics were available, it found that since going on line at the end of 1996, over 25000 people had accessed the site, 37% of which were based in the UK, the rest from all over the world. It was suggested that although the cost was small in actually buying space, the suggestion was that it would be money well spent, by having the site properly prepared and updated on a regular basis.
As far as Dacorum and Berkhamsted is concerned, the obvious use would to promote tourism, and make available most other already printed material, such as who does what, when and where. Possibly committee agendas & reports, indeed anything that needs to be communicated to the outside world. Several members of the Council consider that a few bob spent on looking into this could be money well spent. We shall see.
This leads neatly into the most recent course I attended which was concerned on devolution of power back to local government. On this course was a Councillor from Tring and during our ‘chats’ we compared ideas on the subject of attracting visitors to the area and the Internet was seen as a good, cheap way of getting the ball rolling. I did suggest that perhaps we ought to get together with places such as Aldbury and Ashridge and have a visitor area on the web for the Tring, Berkhamsted, Ashridge triangle. I hope this will be investigated further and I will try to keep you posted, unless you want to help, of course, when I would be pleased to hear from you. Another interesting fact that came from this course was included in a talk by a speaker from  Falmouth Town Council. They managed to get grants from various bodies to refurbish their Municipal Building, (I hasten to add, that like us, they are only tenants), improve the library facilities, art gallery, council offices and install a lift etc. The art gallery costs the town over £55000 to run and even with monies received from commissions and the shop, this is reduced to only around £45000, ignoring capital costs. This is a town that attracts visitors by the thousands and those who are looking to the REX may wish to bear these real life figures in mind when looking for public money to buy and support that particular project.
Meanwhile, nearer to home, with the weather changing by the week, salt bins are high on the agenda of County, Borough and Town/Parish Councils. You will have read in the local press that County have decided to remove the roadside salt bins throughout the county to save £50000 each year and offered local councils “the opportunity to take on the provision of this service”. At the Borough works committee held on 21st October, it was decided that because it was believed a fair amount of the salt was used for residents own private drives and not as intended amongst other reasons, then County could take their bins away. The cost to the Borough Council is estimated as between £4000 and £8000 for the 70 odd bins concerned. The matter has now been considered by a number of Towns/Parish Councils with some accepting ‘one fill’ per year and some agreeing with the Borough. As usual, Berkhamsted has a meeting to discuss the matter three days after the deadline for this issue, so I will gaze into my crystal ball and tell you what I think. (After all, that’s why you are reading this column, isn’t it?) County have suggested a cost of £100 per year per bin to our Town Clerk, which includes four refills a year. We have to get/buy the salt from the County depot at Kings Langley, cart it back to Berkhamsted and go to the 20 odd bins scattered around the town and refill as necessary. Presumably, we then take the excess back to Kings Langley? I’m not sure it is worth it as Borough will continue with the existing highway salting scheme which ensures we can get about on those few days of the year that the bins are designed for, unless you live in a cul-de-sac or one of the rare flat residential areas not on a bus route. Unless we provide bins to cover every unsalted road, then we have to draw a line somewhere.
Perhaps a word or two about the principles connected with this would be in order. Town & Parish Councils all over the country are looking to take on more responsibility, but we need a level playing field. This is being imposed rather than us asking to provide a service that we consider can be provided better locally. The minor detail of finance has been mentioned, but it costs you, the ratepayer, more for your Town Council to provide this sort of service than County. Why? Because national government provides funds which go towards the provision of this service, that’s why, and we don’t get it, so the full cost falls on you!        
Finally, as my readership has now reached double figures (just), may I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a prosperous New Year and hope to keep you informed about the main topics your council discusses as well as entertained over the coming year.