This community centre in Wellington Road is where Rhyl Town Council has its offices and holds meetings. When resigning as a town councillor last month I said, “Most decisions affecting Rhyl seem to start as recommendations from county council staff; county councillors say yes to most of these. Town council acts as an advisory body up to a point but has no power to change anything.”Rhyl Town Council is a community council. A couple of days ago I heard that the Welsh Assembly is seeking powers from Westminster to strengthen the role of community councils in Wales and bring decision-making closer to the ground. It is a laudably democratic aim, but a lot of community councillors are county councillors as well – so the move wouldn’t spread the power around very much.
I would advocate scrapping town and county councillors altogether and making the county’s heads of department stand for direct re-election by the public every four years. That would ensure the highly paid heads of education, environment, housing, planning and so on, stayed in tune with the community and thought twice before foisting on us so many changes for which we never asked.
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