A six hour meeting lasting until 1am – confusing, repetitive, unwieldy and unworkable. It must be perfectly clear to all by now that this authority as constituted is not fit for purpose. BCP Council cannot operate with so many councillors. It is behemoth, too large to be able to work in a proper democratic fashion. Too many people speak for too long and effectively say nothing, others line up one after another to say the same thing. Tuesday night’s agenda was too long, and there needs to be a time limit on council meetings after which unresolved business should be deferred.
This proposal was rejected by the Conservative administration by the narrowest of margins, 38-36. From the inception of the unitary council, the Christchurch Independents have been asking for three committees. It was clear to us, living in our own area of such unique heritage and diverse architecture, green space and coastline, that one committee for such a wide area as Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole simply would not work. We said it would be a blunt instrument, working within a too-large framework and unable to assimilate the differences in our three towns. Now the unitary has been in place for nearly two years, time has proved that this is the case. Residents – even those who formerly embraced the unitary system – have told us that they now find having only one planning committee is not working for our area.