Letter: Can Cllr George Potter Really Do It All?

Published on: 6 Mar, 2023
Updated on: 6 Mar, 2023

Cllr George Potter

From: Paul Robinson

Received Sunday, March 5

I am very sorry if Mr Robinson feels I have let him down, and if there are any emails he has sent me which I should have, but did not, reply to then I can only apologise.

I have looked through my email account for all emails from Mr Robinson and I am afraid that the only ones I can find are from May last year, plus an additional one from December. The one from December was about the London Road Active Travel scheme and was sent to Cllr Fiona Davidson with myself cc’d in, and it was replied to completely by Cllr Davidson before I was able to reply myself.

The emails from May (which is also when the social media exchange referred to by Mr Robinson took place) all concerned flooding on the Thorneycroft Path in Christchurch ward, and, as far as I can tell, were responded to and resolved by council staff within three days of Mr Robinson asking me to lobby council staff to sort out the issue.

As for the emails from Mrs Robinson, I am afraid it is indeed correct that she hasn’t had an acknowledgement from me yet, and I can only apologise for that. She is, I am afraid, not the only one, as I was sick for a week in February with the very nasty cold that has been going around and I am still yet to catch up on all of the emails that I missed while I was sick, especially the ones involving more complex and intractable problems such as the one raised by Mrs Robinson.

However, whilst excuses can always be made for individual lapses, Mr Robinson makes a very fair point. Being a borough councillor is a serious commitment, being a county councillor even more so, and balancing those commitments and responsibilities with holding down a full time job is challenging at the best of times. In particular, it makes you very vulnerable to unexpected disruption (such as illness); once you get thrown off track it is very difficult to catch up again.

This hasn’t been helped by GBC having been in budget season for the past two months whilst also being in the run up to the pre-election period, meaning an immense amount of council business to get through.

Whilst I would dearly love to focus on casework (it is, in fact, the most satisfying part of the job to be able to sort out a problem for someone), the unfortunate reality is that council meetings are a lot less time-flexible and cannot be postponed or deferred, and are just as much a part of a councillor’s duties as responding to emails from residents, which means they often have to take priority.

I am not going to say hand on heart that I always get the balance completely right, but I do think that, overall, I generally manage to strike a balance which means that the most important issues all get dealt with and that as many less important issues are dealt with as possible; especially given the unfortunate reality that there are always going to be more problems to solve than there is time to solve them, even for those without a day job to distract them.

And I should also point out that an unfortunate practical reality of being a GBC Executive member (a position I only reached in November last year and which I’m still adjusting to) is that, whilst it means I am able to do more on a borough-wide level for my community, it does also limit how much individual casework I can do.

But Mr Robinson is also completely right to question whether it makes sense to elect as a councillor someone who has a full-time job. Certainly someone who is retired, or does not have to work, is better able to focus on the role of being a councillor with far fewer distractions. But, at the same time, a council comprised solely of people who do not have to work is unlikely to properly represent all of society.

For my part, I am one of the youngest members of the council and one of a minority of councillors who also works a regular job. I feel that this enables me to contribute a perspective to the council which might otherwise be less well represented, which in turn helps contribute towards better, more well-rounded decision-making. But it is definitely a trade-off, and it is absolutely fair for each individual voter to decide for themselves what is more important to them in a local councillor.

When it comes to the future, I am sure I will continue to have to maintain a challenging balance between work and council commitments, if I am re-elected. Maintaining that balance will be helped by being lucky enough to have a job which allows flexible working, by having another ward councillor which whom I can share the workload (Burpham is a two-councillor ward), and also by being single, without children, and therefore able to devote almost all of my free time to being a councillor.

I would not be re-standing again if I were not confident that I could manage the workload for another four years, but at the same time, I will freely admit that I will be very glad to finish what I have set out to achieve on the county council in the next two years and then hand on the baton to someone else when my term as a county councillor ends in 2023.

Ultimately, it will be up for the people of Burpham to decide in May whether my record of action over the past four years (as I have summarised in the Burpham Pages), is deserving of another term of office or not. Until then I will continue to be their councillor to the best of my ability and will continue to be contactable by email, telephone and letter.

I would also encourage all residents of Burpham to come to the hustings, hosted by the Burpham Community Association, on March 23, so that they can see the candidates standing in Burpham first-hand and judge for themselves who they feel would do the best job as local councillor.

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