Powys longest serving councillor Gareth Morgan standing down
Powys' longest serving county councillor was given a standing ovation by fellow members after bidding farewell to the chamber after more than 50 years.
Gareth Morgan said it has been a 'privilege' and a 'wonderful experience' to represent Llanidloes on Powys County Council since 1973.
First elected to Montgomery County Council in 1970 as a Liberal, he remained the only councillor to have served since the local authority was formed.
The former solicitor announced to the chamber on Thursday, May 15, that he was standing down from the role after 52 years.
Cllr Morgan said to councillors: 'It has been a wonderful experience being a member of this council from the start in 1973.
'Throughout the years that I have been member; it's been such a privilege to among so many friends.
'There is a wonderful atmosphere in this chamber, please do your best to preserve it.
'We've all got differences – we can argue in the chamber but when we leave it, we must forget those, and we must be friends.
'This is the way we deliver policies and have the most beneficial effect on the people we represent.'
Three-time mayor Cllr Morgan fulfilled many council roles over the years including as Chair of Council between 1999 and 2000 and also held the position of Board Member for Arts and Culture from the Board's establishment in 2002 until 2008.
In recognition of his service, Cllr Morgan was presented with a glass bowl by outgoing Chair Cllr Jonathan Wilkinson on behalf of himself, fellow county councillors and council staff.
'We really appreciate the work that you've done here at Powys County Council over a long period of time – it has been an incredible service that you have given,' Cllr Wilkinson said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
Cheltenham 'near miss' hotspot to get pedestrian crossing
A pedestrian crossing is to be installed near a primary school following a safety campaign by one of its and teachers have reported a number of near misses on Church Road in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, with cars mounting the pavements during the school a year six student at Leckhampton Primary School, started a petition last year calling on the county council to install a crossing."So many people are using the road getting to school every morning and they just need some form of safety, especially for younger children," she said. Amalie's petition attracted more than 1,000 signatures and she spoke about her concerns at a council campaign garnered cross-party support and the then Conservative-led council agreed to support the proposal and carry out under Liberal Democrat control, Gloucestershire County Council said it would continue with the plan to install the crossing despite there being no serious Martin Horwood said: "We don't want to wait until somebody is hurt. We want to get this done as soon as possible." Amalie won an award from her school for her campaigning work. Head teacher Samantha Porter said: "We are incredibly proud of the initiative shown by Amalie in championing safer routes to school."Amalie will have left the school by the time the crossing but has welcomed the commitment by the council, saying she is "pleased that they've actually listened to my idea".In a statement, the council said it recognised "how difficult crossing the road can be for children, the elderly and people with a disability".
Powys County Times
15 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Powys Council car parks 'are not a cash cow', says chief
Powys County Council's car parks are "not a cash cow", the county's roads chief has insisted. Jackie Charlton insisted that money raised in the county's car parks is being reinvested in drivers who use their cars to get into town centres. And she said she hopes research can be done to find out exactly what mode of transport people take when visiting town centres in Powys. At a meeting of Powys County Council's Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee on Thursday, June 12, councillors received a long awaited final report on the car parking review which has produced new recommendations. Car parking fees were increased as part of the 2023/2024 budget by the Liberal Democrat/Labour/Green administration which came into force in April 2023. But the move has been sternly opposed ever since which led to a working group being set up in the autumn of 2023 to review the fees as well as other car parking arrangements. Opposition councillors have wanted to reduce the fees in a bid to get people to start using car parks again so that they visit businesses and shop in the town centres and in doing so providing a much needed boost the economy across the county. Cabinet member for highways, transport and recycling, Cllr Jackie Charlton (Liberal Democrat) said: 'In the last 12 months or so I've not had correspondence from anybody on the car parks, but I know they are awaiting the result of this report eagerly.' Cllr Pete Lewington (Conservative) said: 'Please don't think that the silence means the issue has gone away, people continually raise it with me here in Newtown. 'I'm concerned that this review is just focussed on raising money for the council and potentially pursuing an ideological desire to do away with cars in the pursuit of net zero. 'I don't think we should use income from car parking to plug gaps in our budgets.' The report explains that during 2023/2024 sales of car park tickets had dropped by nine per cent, but income had increased by £136,000. Cllr Lewington while 'pleased' to see the introduction of a one hour tariff he was concerned at the drop in ticket sales because this represented a: 'lot of visitor spending power.' Cllr Lewington said: 'We should not be congratulating ourselves without considering whether this was a price worth paying for our town centres.' He believed that council now faced a question of whether to continue using car parks as a 'cash cow' or have them be 'revenue neutral.' This could increase footfall into town centres to help: 'our hard pressed businesses and tourist industry.' Cllr Charlton responded: 'It's not a cash cow. 'The money that comes in from car parks goes out to support our highways for people who use their cars to get to our town centres. 'Something I'm quite keen to do is ask Aberystwyth University to do a piece of work that actually understands what footfall is from parking, buses and walking into our town centres. 'This so that we can get a much better idea and whether there are outside impacts as well.' Cllr Charlton added: 'There are other ways of supporting businesses than just reducing car parking fees.' Recommendations from the committee will be added to the report which is expected to go before the Cabinet later this summer. The recommended proposals for car parks are:
BBC News
15 hours ago
- BBC News
Failure 'not an option' says Derbyshire's new anti-waste chief
Reform UK's new efficiency chief in Derbyshire says the party's flagship anti-waste agenda will pull the council's finances "back from the brink", despite admitting there is "limited scope" for savings in the County Council has a net budget spend of roughly £770m and debt levels in the region of £400m. Its current budget plans - formed under the previous Conservative leaders - include a deficit of well over £30m, largely due to pressures on adult and children's social care and special educational is one of only a few of Reform's new councils that has made its efficiency drive into a formal cabinet position. John Lawson, the newly elected Breaston councillor who has a background in finance, will be leading the county's "Doge" drive, modelled after the Department of Government Efficiency previously overseen by Elon Musk in the says formalising the position in Derbyshire is part of a "concerted effort" to stop the council from going into special measures, which would be the "direction of travel" without their efforts."[The council] is in significant debt's not really the problem. The problem we see is the increase in runaway expenditure. The operating expenses of running the council," he said."The position we inherited was a council spending beyond its means." Rather than making cuts and slashing expenditure, the party's focus will be on making spending more efficient and effective with existing efficiency by 10% is seen as an achievable target over the course of the next few years, and while it is unclear how exactly this will be measured, attempting to maintain existing levels of spending against a backdrop of rising costs and demand will be the broad aim. Lawson says that in the past two years, the council has spent £238m more than it anticipated it would have to, roughly a 15 - 20% overspend, which he says cannot be wholly explained by rising costs and other external and assessing council contracts, as well as combing through the council's operating costs, are seen as a prime target for where efficiencies can be found. However, the former administration's budget plans passed by the council in February will be adhered to for the rest of the financial year."We're not looking to make any savings over and above that, other than the small savings that we've already made, because we're just still understanding where we are," Lawson said."Hopefully we can make more savings but I can't promise anything at the moment."If you come back in six months time hopefully we've managed to find £10m we can save, but I doubt that will be the case simply because we know that there have been cost pressures."Having said that, we know that over the last two years the Conservative administration massively overspent, so if we can rein some of that in then possibly we can make some savings."He rejected any suggestion the party had underestimated the scale of the difficulty in finding efficiencies. "70% of the council's spend is spent on very vulnerable there's very limited scope for reducing spend, but that doesn't mean it can't be done," he said. However, the finance director admitted the party had overestimated figures put out recently claiming to have made around £88,000 of savings in its first two weeks in power, or £6,000 a day."We'll hold our hands up - we made a mistake there, was just a miscalculation", says Lawson, claiming the figure is more like £4,000 a day and about £60,000 worth of savings on councillor allowances and other small scale parties have used the "minute" figures to claim that the party's Doge agenda has been "discredited", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service."I'm grateful that our colleagues in the Tories and the Greens have actually pointed out we are saving money," Lawson said. Morale concern While job cuts are not being ruled out, Lawson says employee headcount will not be reduced in the short term with the potential exception of "small teams".However, it is possible staff pension schemes will be looked at, which the deputy leader of the party Richard Tice has criticised for being "unaffordable"."There's no doubt that defined benefit pension schemes have unfortunately become very expensive to operate," Lawson said."Ultimately, we haven't got a magic money tree, and we have to bear that in mind with future contracts." Leaders also think productivity can be tackled by "improving staff morale", which Lawson says is "on the floor". But the emphasis will be an ongoing mindset shift to the council's approach to its spending, rather than a "slash and cut" mentality in order to achieve the party's aims."We're very focused. We were elected on a ticket of change," Lawson says, rejecting the idea that recent turmoil at the top of the party will hinder their efforts for delivering Doge on the ground."We were elected by the people of Derbyshire to try to essentially instil some common sense into the management of council services. Failure is not an option." The leader of Derbyshire Conservatives Alex Dale predicts Reform UK will fail to "live up to their own hype" and says the Conservatives had left the council's budget "in a far stronger position than it was two years ago"."It's becoming increasingly clear that running a council of this scale and with these challenges is far more complex than Reform UK claimed during the election campaign and so it's little wonder they're getting their excuses in early now," he said."We'll be holding them to account for every promise they made and every decision they now take, on behalf of Derbyshire residents."
