CONGRATULATIONS to all those who were recently elected in the local council elections – I truly hope you embrace the opportunity you have been given to represent the people of our great town.
To those of you who failed to get elected, commiserations and thank you for taking part in our democratic process.
But sadly in many wards turnout was between 20-30 per cent, with the vast majority of people choosing not to vote.
For those of you who didn’t vote please don’t moan about how the council is run – you had a chance to decide who runs the corridors of power.
For those running the election process both nationally and locally certainly more needs to be done to encourage people to vote. Numerous times I heard people saying they had no idea who to vote for because they didn’t know anything about those who were standing. Some people were totally unaware an election was even taking place!
Sadly most people I spoke to who didn’t vote also believed there was no point saying it would make no difference.
In this modern world of online banking one wonders how much longer it will be before there is a chance to vote online – although I suspect there are fears that this could lead to people casting multiple votes for members of their families who don’t bother voting – although postal voting also offers this opportunity.
Certainly something needs to happen to spark more interest and to get more people out to the ballot box – in Warrington we now have four years to come up with a plan!
I would also like to congratulate locally based David Keane on his election as Police and Crime Commissioner for Cheshire – which came as a surprise to many people. Hopefully having a Warrington based police chief will be good news concerning policing in the town.
Finally as we mark the 200th issue of our monthly magazine, I would like to thank all those who have supported us since our launch way back in 1999 at the start of the digital media revolution. Our website was the first independent online newspaper in the country, while the magazine is now one of six in our group.
I am pleased to say there are a good number of people who have supported us throughout our journey who are still around after 200 issues – thank you for believing in us as we continue to provide our town with an independent news source which is made and printed in Warrington by Warrington people for Warrington people both here and around the world.
