Where does the democracy bit go?

Being elected as a unitary councillor in January put me automatically on the local Community Network for Camborne, Pool, Illogan and Redruth.  So far I’ve been to all the meetings and still haven’t a clue what it is for or its relevance to local democracy.

The networks were the invention of the Liberal Democrats in their unitary plans with some vague purpose – I think it was fobbing off complaints that a unitary council would be too remote from local concerns.

It is impossible that it even fulfills this function given that probably 99.8% of the population have never heard of them.  At a guess 100% don’t know what they do and that includes those of us who go along.

We have a cup of tea and a biscuit. We have had presentations on transport, affordable homes, poverty, heartlands (I think – or was that a different meeting at the same venue? In the early days it can be difficult to pin down what meeting you are at.), children’s centres, planning.  Then we go home.

At the end of last week’s meeting we had a lively discussion on what and why, as we have to do something technical about a constitution at some point in the near future.  (You can tell how gripped I am by this – a feeling that seems to be shared by everyone.)

There was mention of the yawning gap in democracy between town/parish and unitary, the yawning gap in democracy between backbench unitary councillors and the cabinet and the yawning of people who had been working all day and wondered why on earth they kept coming along.

I’ve no idea what it costs the council to run these but I will ask the question.  It only costs me a bit of shoe leather to walk round the corner to the Pool Innovation Centre but I do prefer to feel there is a point to things.

That’s it, really.