County Councillor Joanne Beavis’s revolutionary proclamations in these columns over the last few editions have left me increasingly bewildered and alarmed.

Last week “accountability and transparency” seem to have been advocated.

Yet the “panels” recommended by Cllr Beavis are not open to the public and neither are their decisions readily available for scrutiny by the proletariat.

The very number of these “panels” make them more obscure and therefore likely to slip below the public’s notice. Unfortunately, in modern local government, terms like “panel” and “working party” have become weasel-words used instead of “committee” as a dodgy way of keeping the public out.

And how much public money do these “panels” spend that the tax-paying plebeians never get to know about?

So, no thank you; no more “panels”.

I would like to stick with honest, open local government where the public gets a look-in.

There is in any case so much more a county councillor can do within the existing structure to improve the county council.

For example, highway maintenance could do better and the Philistine dismantling of the library service should be reversed. There are smaller things, too, which a campaigning member of the councillor class might like to address.

Maybe cutting the £11,000 a year allowance paid to all county councillors for doing next to nothing?

Perhaps persuading councillors to actually reply to earnest letters from lowly electors?

Power to the People, indeed.

Yours fraternally.

Citizen RG Richmond

Halstead Popular Front