IN the run up to the local elections on Thursday, voters have been sent leaflets from various prospective candidates.

Most of them we have never heard of before. The candidates do not tell us anything about themselves but simply quote national party policies. so how can we decide who to vote for? This is not a general election.

We need to know something about the candidates such as information about their education, family and work experience and their policies for their ward/area and the town. In other words what qualities will they bring to the Council Chamber to help us to decide whether they are a suitable candidate to represent us at local level.

They will be responsible for making decisions about the spending of a multi-million pound budget on the town so what business and management experience do they have to do that. I suspect that some of them may have little.

Cllr Paul Richardson told us in these columns that he became a councillor because his cafe business failed and he found himself unemployed. He decided to regularise his finances by becoming a councillor and when criticised in the paper for that, he back peddled and told us that he had asked a lot of questions at Council meetings. Neither of these reasons are good enough to qualify as a councillor.

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