The truth is, our little North Shields community of ‘Preston’ is a brilliant place to live. It’s important that we keep that in mind!
I want to congratulate my colleague Councillor Cath Davis for the vision and hard work she’s shown in producing the first edition of “Preston People“, a community magazine drawing attention to some great people, businesses and initiatitives. If you haven’t already received a copy through your door, or if you live out of the area but would like to have a nosy at what makes Preston so fab, you can view the magazine online by clickling here.
As a local councillor I’ve found that real care has to be taken around the way we communicate. One of the main motivations to become a councillor is to be part of bringing improvements to the local area, and there is always something to be improved. However, if all we ever do is draw attention to the negatives, to things that are not as good as we’d like them to be, we risk running down the area and damaging its reputation. Even worse, from a political point of view, there is a temptation to inflate the scale of a problem in order to then position yourself as being able to provide the answer. That’s something I trust that you will never find myself or Cath to be guilty of.
I’m tempted to start quoting a range of statistics at this point to show how well our ward performs on a range of indicators, but that’s not for today. I think residents know at heart that despite the ongoing niggles and gripes (about which I frequently comment on this blog) we have an enormous amount to be thankful for.
In summary then, the task of a local councillor is yes, to deal with the day-to-day dramas of unemptied bins and wonky flagstones. But it’s more than that too. The task of a councillor is to remind people that we aren’t just strangers who happen to inhabit the same post code, we are a community of people who care for one another and for the neighbourhod we share. I think that Preston People does a really great job of getting that message across.
Well done Cath!
Wilson’s Weekly 