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ANTHONY FAIRCLOUGH, Press Officer, Merton Liberal Democrats, in the Wimbledon Guardian, Thursday 15th June 2005 "I think many people will appreciate the frustrations that have led to the setting up of the Pension Action Alliance (Wimbledon Guardian, September 8). It can seem that the current Labour and Conservative councillors are not listening to residents and taking their views into account. Many councillors in Merton don't ever seem to let their constituents know what they've been doing on behalf of residents, and if we don't know what they've been doing, how can we decide whether we're happy with their actions? We need councillors who report back on their activities at least annually; councillors who do regular street survey sessions - meeting residents and hearing their concerns so they can represent all their constituents; and councillors who work to make council procedures more open - for example, why does the My Merton magazine never report on whether the council is meeting its own performance targets? We hope residents will agree in 2006 when they next get the opportunity to have a say on their council." Newsflash WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING? 84.9% of respondents to our online poll have said that their current councillors don't ever report on their activities (poll conducted 26 Jun 2005 to 31 Jan 2006). If they don't keep in touch, how do we know whether they're representing us? If they don't keep in touch, how do they know what we want?
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