Duckpond Dispatch

My first week as a district councillor has been mostly about learning the day to day admin and starting to deal with casework. I need to upgrade my home computer set up to deal with casework and the vast number of issues I need to keep track of. Until I get a proper tracking system I am asking correspondents to give me a nudge if they don’t hear back from me in a few months.

I believe very strongly that councillors should be visible in the community and available to listen to residents concerns. I am currently arranging a series of ‘meet the councillor sessions’ in cafes and village halls, though fitting in weekend events around my other commitments can be difficult. I am a regular at Tickety Brew in Haddenham and plan to make some of my visits ‘Meet the councillor’ events for people to have informal conversations. I will of course also be available for private conversations by arrangement. Look out for advice of my next events!

Besides getting started as a district councillor I have been playing catch-up with my day job on the railway, which suffered a bit during the run up to the election! I have a few busy periods at work coming up so please bear with me if I am not able to respond quickly.

I attended Dinton Parish council last week and found out about some local issues. It has been
some years since I attended a PC 

meeting as an observer and the chairman had to (very politely) remind me that members of the public don’t normally take part in debates when I advised a key bit of information regarding dog wardens. As the Green Party coordinator says to me occasionally: “curb your enthusiasm!”

I have had an induction day at AVDC and now have a login into their information network and my email address is dlyons@aylesvaledc.gov.uk which I will use for council matters. If you email me at other email accounts I do not regularly look at, you me get a delayed response. I have found the staff at AVDC very helpful and dedicated to their work, though as everywhere nowadays they are short of resources and long on workload.

My first Meet the councillor at Tickety Brew