Guildford and Waverley leaders meet as they embark on forging closer links between their respective councils.
Both councils will share a single senior management team, including a Chief Executive, Directors and Heads of Service. Once in place, the new management team will prepare business cases for further combining services and/ or administrative work.
Waverley’s Leader Cllr Paul Follows met with his Lib Dem colleague Guildford Leader Julia McShane at The Burys in Godalming yesterday. They were joined by Guildford’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PCC) Zoe Franklin.
Cllr Follows said:
“It was great to welcome Julia and Zoe today for a long overdue catch-up on the multitude of joint issues, concerns and opportunities for our two borough’s moving forward.”
Click on the link here, and you can read the single official statement released in the name of both councils. A statement that aims to reassure both residents of both boroughs and their council staff.
Afterwards, Zoe Franklin commented:As always a helpful and wide-ranging conversation. Local people should feel confident that theirs’ and their communities’ interests are in good hands with you both and the wider teams.
Just one question, would WBC be considering this if Guildford had a Tory or Labour leadership?
Let us hope so? Though it may have proved more difficult. The Waverley Tory Group was no fan of the move towards Guildford – and the WW suspects that the two groups work together, so it may have been problematic. However, it is our view that whoever is in a position of influence – hate the word power – we would hope that some efforts would be made for joint working. If council’s don’t, with ever-decreasing funding, they are on a road to nowhere. Isn’t it preferable to work with local authorities that share common borders than let SCC become the geat big unitary authority it wants? Yes, really, really wants?
Is Joss Bigmore no longer the Leader at Guildford?
On checking there website it states that Julia McShane is a LibDem member of their Executive not their Leader and Zoe Franklin is a LibDem candidate
A political cynic might say that Cllr Follows was simply hosting a Liberal Democrat meeting in the Waverley offices
You can take the man out of politics…..but you cant take the politics out of the man.
Cllr Follows talked a lot of sense In a video clip on WW a few weeks back – politics aside … forging links with a neighbouring council is a good move.
If he could just leave the politics out of it he would broaden his audience. Currently its all a bit of a turn off. The jobs cuts question posed by someone else is a good one? Have assessments been done on how many employees will be axed?
My question would be : Will there be any job cuts as a result?