Constituents get lumbered with the local councillors they justly deserve

This post is intended for anyone who may be a sensible local councillor.

Now I appreciate the two words "sensible councillor" used together may cause concern to many constituents who consider their councils, if "Rotten Burroughs" in Private Eye magazine is anything to go by, to be as far away from reality as Dr Who's Tardis. Nottingham, Luton, Bath and of course the lunacy in Croydon are prime examples. A Chief Executive is brought in with a huge "golden hello" via a swathe of council taxpayers' money, and three months later, leaves with an equally huge chunk of council taxpayers' money as a "golden good riddance" only to surface as a CEO of some other council, on an eye-watering salary and pension, some 200 miles away.

Meanwhile, as their council areas go to pot, Councillor Portfolio Holders for Veganism, Gender Bending, National Bill and Ben Flowerpot Men Week and more are claiming attendance allowances for meetings they never turn up to.

In Greater Manchester, towns like Radcliffe, Farnworth, Swinton and Middleton are well on the way to total death. Rochdale, home of the Coop and one-time home to Gracie Fields and Lisa Stansfield, is dying. Oldham is suffocating. The once mighty Bolton, with its magnificent architecture, the largest non-city town in the UK and one of the largest non-city towns in Europe is quickly fading away.

Councils are obsessed with the environment and banning cars, raising rents and rates to ensure shops are unaffordable to small business. They ban cars while at the same time there are no replacement buses. And councillors, in their infinite wisdom, don't seem to appreciate you can't take a cooker home on one or two of the buses that aren't cancelled last minute and actually arrive as per their timetables.

So everyone chases off to the Trafford Centre, or White City, where there is infinite free parking. Meanwhile, local shopkeepers sit there behind their counters, living in hope that they might see a customer before lunchtime.

So councillors, before you have nothing left in towns to councilise over, open your eyes and get out and about in the town centres you lord over.

With access no longer needed for the now non-existent buses, start to examine your yellow lines and see if they really are needed any more. Open up more pay and display parking (not using parasites like Parking Eye or NCP) at a quid for a couple of hours - have you not twigged on that motorists are currently more than happy with paying a couple of quid for several hours at The Rock car park slap bang in the middle of Bury?

That way you will attract shopkeepers and the shoppers they need! Is it any wonder Marks and Sparks have quit Rochdale and are now leaving Bolton. Because there is simply nowhere near to park! Do you not know that 80% of journeys into towns are made by car out of sheer necessity? You can't be that thick (oh yes you can). It's a well-known statistic which isn't going to lower any time soon. Why do you think The Range took over the huge former Debenham's store in Bury. Yes, you geniuses, because shoppers can easily and cheaply park in the nearby Rock.

I appreciate through our wonderful democracy and your supporters who tirelessly use so much of their own time electioneering every other May, residents end up with the councillors they justly deserve as penance. However, yes, while there are many excellent and hard-working councillors out there, these excellent councillors have to stop going with the flow, get off their backsides and do something.

It ain't rocket science. It doesn't need KPMG brought in for millions of pounds to produce the bleedin' obvious in a report. It's right in front of your noses!

So bloody well do something about it before even those who don't and can't are forced online to sellers who pay nil rates, nil rent and often, thanks to the black economy, nil tax or NI.

It's all very nice for your constituents to come out and bow down to you when you open a new duck pond. Instead, get them out to slap you on the back when you prevent the departure of Marks and Sparks, or when you abandon those double yellow lines you know in your heart of hearts are only providing Yellow Perils with employment and contributing nothing to the overall fabric of town retail existence.