I attend a joint Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils’ workshop to meet the new joint Chief Executive and to share views on ways forward. There was a lot of mixing and shifting around and to begin with I found myself with a friendly group from Mid Suffolk.

I immediately made friends by promoting the needs of our towns over the villages since the former are the main providers of jobs and economic well being. So after a quick fifteen minutes it was time to sum up the discussions and give a report to the remainder of the groups. I volunteered myself as spokesperson, introduced myself to the new CE and after pleasantries about the difficult and challenging tasks the executive was undertaking let fly with both barrels:

First we never want to hear again the words “There is no alternative” because whenever those words are spoken we have learned that there are alternatives but they are being hidden from us.

Second if we are saving all this money (the main reason for the proposed merger of the Councils) then we can abolish car parking charges. They don’t work and their removal would bring life and regeneration into our market towns.

Well I sat down to appreciation if not applause and I have got one of my aspirations onto the agenda and I suspect that it will be a case of watching this space and seeing how many adherents I collect.