On the 26th April the Annual Town Meeting was held in the Burgage Hall. This is the one occasion in the whole year when the public can ask questions of the Town Council and hear the annual reports from all the committee chairmen and the mayor’s report of his year in office.

Setting aside councillors and journalists and members of the public either receiving awards (Design & Distinguished Citizen) or supporting those who were, I counted 5 members of the public in attendance on the night. This may have been because it wasn’t very well publicised – which was a shame, because it makes it difficult for even interested people to engage with the democratic process at local level.

So … with this in mind, I thought it worth mentioning here that this Thursday (tomorrow) the Town Council meets to elect Ledbury’s mayor for the coming year and all the chairmen and deputies for the council’s sub-committees:

· Environment & Leisure

· Finance & General Purposes

· Planning and Economic Development

The council normally has 18 members and word has it that perhaps as many as 4 councillors will be being proposed and seconded for the role of mayor [(1+2)x4=12] … which means that with 4 vacancies at the moment [12+4=16], there will be only 2 people, who will not have declared their allegiances, left to decide the matter.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out.

Anyone wishing to observe the process can do so, as all Town Council meetings are held in public. The meeting will start at 19:30 upstairs in the Market House on Thursday 10th May.