Councillors agree to ward change in spite of low response to survey (From Gazette)
Get involved: send your pictures, video, news and views by texting GAZETTE NEWS to 80360, or email
Councillors agree to ward change in spite of low response to survey
9:33am Thursday 18th October 2012 in News
HARBOUR ward will change its name to Old Heath in time for fresh elections in 2014.
In a survey of the ward residents, 77 per cent of those who responded agreed to the name change.
The name change is meant to represent the ancient word for ‘harbour’.
But Liberal Democrat Nick Cope spoke against the proposal, saying that just 18 per cent of residents actually responded to the survey.
“That means the majority of residents, according to the survey, in fact do not want the name of the ward to change.
“Is that really democracy in motion?”
Mr Cope also said in every place in England with ‘heath’ in its name, people would expect to see greenery.
“In the whole of England, Colchester will be the exception to that, there is no heath, there is no greenery,” he added.
But Labour councillor Julie Young said: “They all had a choice, like at any vote.”
Fellow party member Tim Young added: “The bus goes to Old Heath, the ward has Old Heath School so it is only right the ward is called Old Heath.”
The decision, taken by a large majority, was taken at a meeting of full Colchester Council on Wednesday.
Comments(4)
Reginald47
says...
11:57am Thu 18 Oct 12
Boris
says...
3:46pm Thu 18 Oct 12
The only justification for the name change is the fact that the ward boundary was redrawn several years ago, so that it no longer includes the harbour area.
Agreed that this is a trivial issue, but it is one of the few issues on which Colchester Labour Party does not attract opprobrium or contempt.
Bert_Stimpson
says...
10:35am Fri 19 Oct 12
romantic says...
11:39am Thu 18 Oct 12
18% replied to the survey. What did they expect? This sort of issue may be vitally important for some, but clearly the other 82% don´t care enough either way.
Personally, I would say everybody is well aware of where Old Heath is, whereas Harbour might be seen as more vague - especially as there is no working harbour there anyway!