Councillor on School Visit

Sixth formers at a Hereford College spent more than an hour grilling their local councillor when he returned to fulfil an election day promise.

Herefordshire Councillor Brian Wilcox, Cabinet Member (Audit and Performance Management), faced a bombardment of questions from around 100 students when he visited Hereford Sixth Form College last week.

He visited the college to meet the A-level politics students following a discussion with them earlier this year when they claimed that local politics had nothing to do with them and that they had no involvement in the decision making process.

“The services Herefordshire Council provides affects everyone in the county on a day to day basis,” said Cllr Wilcox.

“Whether it’s youngsters in our schools, motorists on our roads, the elderly being looked after or people accessing the Internet at our libraries, they’re all benefiting from the more than 700 services we provide.

“This makes us very relevant whether you live, work or are visitors in the county.

“However, I can understand these teenagers saying that politics had nothing to do with them,” he added.

Cllr Wilcox explained to the youngsters how local government was run and included the role of Parish and Town Councils.

He spoke about the constraints placed on councils and ran through the financial issues and controls imposed by Central Government which often limit the freedom of Councils in parts of their role.

He was supported by Virginia Taylor, Prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, who went into the issues of regional government, differences between political parties, representation at various levels of government and how the democratic process worked.

“We were originally meant to be with the youngsters for an hour, but the questions kept coming and we had to end the session after 90 minutes.

“It was really encouraging to see the enthusiasm of the students and by the time we finished it was generally accepted that local and national politics have a part to play in the future of Herefordshire youth,” added Cllr Wilcox.