Dec 7th, 2011
Chelmsford voters’ agreement: what do you think?
By Sion Williams
Photograph by 38 Degrees
One of the ideas from our get-together in Chelmsford was that we could work together to draw up a “voters’ charter”, to lay out what local members expect of the MPs (and possibly other figures like councillors too) they elect, now and in the future. Then we can ask Simon Burns MP and other local politicians in Chelmsford to agree to it.
As a first step, we can start discussing what might go into the agreement. The overall idea was to set down some basic, minimum expectations for how a politician should engage with their voters between elections. One idea is to ask for a commitment to responding to their voters when they get in touch. Other ideas have included being willing to meet small groups of people who share concerns about a particular issue.
Do you live in Chelmsford? What do you think? What other things are important to include? Are there commitments local voters could make in return? Share your ideas in the comments section below, then we’ll arrange a get-together in Chelmsford to get all our ideas together before the final process of getting an agreement written.
