Help with bid for town council

Kidderminster Civic Society chairman Nick Hughes has asked the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions Beverley Hughes to meet people outraged at the "blatant injustice" of the decision.

Kidderminster Charter Trustees lost their five-year battle to create a town council last November when the Government decided Kidderminster would be "unduly dominant within the district" should it be formed.

However, the trustees have now won the support of the civic society and Wyre Forest MP David Lock.

Mr Lock, himself a member of the Government, said: "Successive governments have now ruled against a Kidderminster town council which is disappointing.

"I have lobbied hard for the case but unless the rules about creating town councils are changed, I fear the decision won't change and the minister is unlikely to come to Kidderminster.

"However, if the civic society and trustees come to me for my support they will get it and I would press for the minister to meet them."

Mr Hughes said: "The district council, county council and most of our neighbouring parishes support our petition for a town council, so what right have distant politicians to deny us our rights when a town council could not possibly dominate the district?

"The fact there are more Kidderminster councillors than others on the district council is irrelevant as they are divided by party loyalties and the officers who advise them are district officers with no special brief for Kidderminster."

The campaign to create the town council had gathered pace in 1998 when the required 10 per cent of the town's electorate pledged support to the bid and a petition was launched.

However, a government spokesman said the application had been refused because Kidderminster has more than 50 per cent of the district's population and more district councillors than elsewhere in Wyre Forest.