“Unlike most other commentators Rob Flello's proposals at least have a rationale. He recognises that most people identify with a relatively small 'home' area rather than purely administrative boundaries such as electoral wards. Creating urban parishes by clustering these natural neighbourhoods and making provision for the election of parish councillors from these neighbourhoods together with a city councillor (described by Rob Flello as an 'official' councillor) makes a lot of sense. In many respects it mirrors approaches for modernising local government currently taking place in the most enlightended county councils. It provideds a real opportunity to marry the 'local' with the 'strategic' which is missing from existing arrangements. So long as the half-baked proposals for reorganising neighbourhood management/services are rejected it also provides an opprtunity to get this right. I cannot understand why anyone would even think about tinkering with administrative arrangements for neighbourhood services without the also taking account of what arrangements will exist for electing councillors. Under Flello's proposals future governance arrangements (including long awaited improvements for engaging city residents) offer real prospects for a better fit between the governors and the governed. The devil, of course, will be in the detail but under these proposals it would be possible to take a fresh look at what services could and should be decentralised/devolved to the local level (i.e. the parish) and those that need to be organised city-wide (involving 'official' city councillors). A real example of 'top down' meeting 'bottom up' and arrangements that would ensure that curently remote, abstract high level strategies such as the Local Area Agreement, Community and Community Safety Stratregies are actually enriched by local democracitic arrangements. Like Flello's proposals or not ,what others have offered up just don't have the same ring of authenticity. Incidentally, shouldn't Paul Farelly concentrate on his own patch and those who suggest that Flello is 'out of step' with his party/government give him credit for actually coming up with something that's workable!.Let the debate continue!”

“Mr Lomax is perfectly correct when he states that the Boundary Committee has been putting presure on the City Council to greatly reduce the number of councillors. Yet this seems to be unique to Stoke. Elsewhere the Boundary Committee sings a different song; they have just OKed a grand total, and I mean grand, of 126 councillors in 63 electoral divisions for the new Durham County Unitary Council, that has twice te population of the City. So the new Durham ratio of population:councillor is exactly the same as the City has now.... so why is the Committee pushing for change here?”

“What Chris said. This city has an absurd number of councillors for such a small population count, and that's a throwback to the amalgamation of its component towns earlier in the twentieth century.

Flello's vision is outdated and needlessly expensive at a time when the council desperately needs to make financial cutbacks. It's time to get rid of a significant number of councillors, and cut down on all the needless bureaucracy.”

“Just like Kerry so rightly points out get shut of those councillors past retirement age - REGENERATE the council with new councillors .”

“The city of Pittsburgh USA (pop 334,000) has nine councillors. Why on earth does Stoke (pop 239,000) need 80? Such a large number is a total waste of public money. No wonder British politics is such a shambles.”

“The idea of putting you under Central Govt control sounded good, its obvious you can't run yourselves.”

“I think I'm right in stating that the Electoral Committee, the body that manages the boundary reviews, has been putting pressure on Councils to cut their numbers for a few years now, so for Rob flello to come up with a suggestion like this does seem a bit fanciful. I thought the whole point of this review as called for by the Governance Commission was to consider reducing the councillor numbers by a substantial amount. I have to agree with Guy, below who believes that most people would opt for a cull of the politicians' numbers if given the chance. As a Tory, I wonder if Mr Flello is even in tune with his own government on this?”

“If not cut the numbers, why not cut the wages instead. It is time that these people are shown what it is like to live in the real world, instead of one where they can claim whatever expenses and get paid a ludicrous salary for spouting rubbish like Robert Flello!!!
Before increasing numbers of councillors, can we get councillors who know exactly what they are doing for the city instead of the majority of ne'er-do-wells that are currently running the council.
As for Brian Ward's comment about recruiting younger members, maybe if the old age pensioners that are on the council retired, there would be a lot more openings available.
How many councillors are over the retirement age? can think of quite a few.”

“What 80 of them the lot we have now could not run a bath let alone a city”

“What planet is Mr Fello from. The last thing this city wants is more politicians with their noses in the trough. Lets cut the number to 30 and while we are at it cut the number of MPs by half.”