Central Bedfordshire Councillors Meet
The inaugural meeting of Central Bedfordshire’s “Shadow Council” will take place at 7pm on Thursday 10 April 2008. 124 councillors from Mid and South Bedfordshire District Councils, and those Bedfordshire County Councillors who represent divisions within these areas, will meet at Priory House, Mid Beds’ offices at Chicksands. The meeting is open to the public and media.
The meeting’s Agenda will require:
- approval of a constitution for the new Central Bedfordshire council
- adoption of a Code of Conduct
- setting up a “Shadow Executive” of key councillors. This will manage the transition to the new council, which begins work in April 2009.
Early 2009 will see the agreement of the budget for Central Bedfordshire.
The Shadow Executive will be the main decision-making body during the transition to Central Bedfordshire. It will prepare and review the implementation plan for the economic, effective, efficient and timely transfer to the new authority of all the property, rights and liabilities of the current three councils.
The Shadow Executive will have four members each from the three authorities merging to form Central Bedfordshire. Tricia Turner as the Leader of Mid Beds, one of the proposing authorities, will be the lead member of the Shadow Executive.
The Shadow Executive will meet in public with published agendas and decisions. It will oversee a number of other groups that will assist with the work of both setting up the new council and ensuring that during the transition process services are maintained at their current high standard.
Tricia Turner said: “This is an historic meeting - for the first time members from all three authorities will be gathering together as one council. We will now begin the work of creating a Central Bedfordshire Council from all the best of the existing three councils. We will be working together to find new and more effective ways to deliver all three councils’ services to local people.”
