A group of disenchanted local residents has come together in a bid to see independent candidates contesting every seat on Abergavenny Town Council at next May’s local elections.

“Next May 2017 we have the once-in-four-years Town Council and Community Council elections but does who is voted in, or which party dominates any council, make a difference to our lives? Did you ever think of putting your name forward but then thought why me?” asks one of the group behind the bid, local man Paul Clifford.

“It’s easy to be cynical and avoid involvement. We are all so busy anyway. Do you even know where your ward boundary is in the town and who are your ward councillors on the town council? Surely it’s best left to others, and anyway what do they do?

“If you’ve noticed, the last decade of events in our town have a very familiar pattern. Projects and initiatives come forward seemingly out of nowhere, frequently promoted by county councillors and their officers or developers. The town councillors appear often as bystanders.

“We then waste months and in some cases years, while those excluded from formulating the origins of the project are forced to simply resist it, or in more positively strive to radically improve it. It frequently and divisively feels like ‘us’ and ‘them’. It needn’t be like that. It’s such a waste of everyone’s effort and time,” said Mr Clifford

“The town of Frome in Somerset set in motion a different way of acting at the local level called under the title Flat-Pack Democracy. http://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/

“A new set of people from all sorts of backgrounds, generations and viewpoints, came together and within three months got themselves elected,” said Mr Clifford.

“Four years later at the next round of elections an expanded group working under the same ethos, completely took over the whole town council. They embraced many divergent political values, but all signed up to a respectful attitude to how you treat each other that rose above party loyalties; they embraced a creative, enabling, open, inclusive and transparent way of conducting business.

“They got rid of many of the suffocating procedures. They knew they had to bring the volunteering energy into the heart of decision making.

“Others are following Frome’s lead. One of its founding members Peter MacFayden came to Abergavenny some months ago. A seed was laid,” he explained.

“If you would like to make it blossom and stand for a different way of decision making in the town, then come to either one of two events, one on the weekend Saturday, November 19 at 2.30pm and on the other is on Monday, November 21. Both meetings will be held at the Abergavenny Community centre, Park Street, and are hosted by Abergavenny Transition Town.

For more information on Flat Pack Democracy go to http://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/