This week I attended the Full Council meting held in the Ipswich Corn Exchange, the main purpose of the meeting was to see the changeover of Mayor from Glen Chisholm to Roger Fern.
The meeting also saw the announcement that I had been promoted to the Executive, it was a great honour but also a funny feeling to find myself sitting at the front (far less boiled sweets available here!)
The Portfolio I have been allocated is 'Community Protection' - a very varied portfolio. Good news is that I am taking over from Neil MacDonald - not only has he done a brilliant job over a number of years but I always know he will be available to ask if any advice is needed.
I now realise it is a complex and quite varied portfolio, with responsibility for CCTV, Noise nuisance, licenses for tattoo parlors and exotic pet shops and much more!
But I think much of my time will be spent working with the police to ensure Ipswich residents are kept safe, this job will become more difficult - we have fantastic policemen and women in Ipswich but they are restricted in what they can do by the number of savage cuts that have been forced on them by this Tory Government. It will be the next few years where we will begin to notice the reduction in service that we have come to expect from the Suffolk Constabulary.
It will be up to me and our great team of council officers to ensure that we do all we can to make sure the council are doing all we can to help in the fight against crime but also to hold the Police and Crime Commissioner to account to make sure that Ipswich gets the police and resources it needs to help keep the streets of Ipswich safe.
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