Epping Guardian...the clans are gathering...

Editor speaks out about regional assembly
25th November 2004
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It has a £2m annual revenue budget that includes over £500,000 in subscriptions from local councils. Epping Forest District Council is paying over £10,000 a year to be a member, but it only meets "approximately" twice a year.

The East of England Regional Assembly recently backed plans for 11,000 new homes in our district as part of a regional scheme for 478,000 new properties in the next 17 years.
So what do we get for our money, being part of an organisation that has been branded "unnecessary and ineffective"?

And what right does this unelected body have to make decisions that will affect all our lives?
Epping Forest MP Eleanor Laing condemns it as "an unnecessary and ineffective and unacceptable tier of government".

The assembly has 106 members none of whom was specifically elected to it. Only two-thirds of the membership are elected councillors from local authoriities, yet the assembly is making key decisions that will have a widespread impact on not just our district but the east of England for decades to come.

The assembly's 2004 revenue account shows it received £591,490 in subscriptions from local authorities and £690,000 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Chambers Fund. With other grants and income its revenue budget topped £2m.

Yet the full assembly, its website states, meets only "approximately twice a year" while an assembly executive of 40 members meets six times per year.
It costs Epping Forest District Council £10,170 to be a member a subscription that could rise to £12,310 in the next financial year.
Even the district council's own representative, councillor Robert Glozier, says the assembly runs the risk of becoming an "expensive talking shop".

While voters in the north east of England recently gave a resounding no to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's plans for regional government, those of us in the eastern region were not even given a chance to have a say before the East of England Regional Assembly, which employs some 45 staff came into being.

Following consultation with local government and other interests during 1998 the assembly's inaugural meeting was held in March 1999 after, the assembly's website states, it became clear there was a wish to establish a voluntary regional chamber in the east of England.
But who decided? It was not the electorate.

Mrs Laing said: "At least the people of the north-east had a chance to express their views. Epping Forest taxpayers spend £10,000 a year and have absolutely no say in what goes on."
Theydon Bois district councillor Robert Glozier, one of the members nominated by the 54 east of England local authorities, takes his seat as Epping Forest Council's planning and economic development portfolio holder.
He said: "I think most of the criticism levied against the assembly is perfectly fair. Only two-thirds of the members are elected by anybody and one-third of the members are purely nominated by non-elected bodies. The risk of the assembly is that it's just an expensive talking shop.
"The assembly was set up by the Government in response to its own policy of being in favour of regional government and also in response to the EU policy that it likes to deal with the regions rather than with national government.
"At the moment I feel that I and my colleagues have no option but to work with the regional assembly because the Government has given it certain powers. However I feel those powers would be better exercised by the existing authorities the county councils and district councils."
Mrs Laing said: "I know our own councillors such as Robert Glozier do their best within the perimeters of the regional assembly, and of course while it exists he and his colleagues have to do that, but it's an affront to democracy to call it an assembly. It misleads people into thinking that it has some kind of democratic validity."

DAVID JACKMAN GUARDIAN EDITOR
7:28pm Thursday 25th November 2004