When Clive Stafford Smith OBE, as chairman, opens the ‘Public-First’ meeting at Dorchester’s Corn Exchange at 7pm on Wednesday, January 7, probably no one will be able to predict with real certainty what will emerge from this forum.

Commentators have noted how unusual a meeting that makes it.

It’s because for the first two-thirds of the meeting Dorset residents will have a chance to comment on two key topics.

Firstly, how WDDC currently applies/uses the Cabinet system in local government.

Secondly, should WDDC (and DCC) at least be actively investigating the costs/benefits of moving to a Unitary system, removing the middle (District Council) tier, and bringing decision-making, and spending, closer to the public it affects locally?

Representatives of the Con-servative, Green, Labour, Lib Dem and UKIP parties have been invited.

The latter four accepted, and as Rt. Hon. Oliver Letwin MP has had to decline, due to a full diary of events in London that day, Council Leader Gould was offered 15 minutes to address the meeting but says he will not be attending, and five of his six Cabinet colleagues have also so far declined.

Will the meeting decide specific one-off actions?

Or will 2015 be the year when the public of West Dorset – stretching from Lyme Regis to Sherborne – and Dorset, determine our voice is the start-point, and we’ll engage in a continuing process of offering politicians the chance to hear our views?

The public has power.

Will it now make it tell?

JOHN GRANTHAM
An Organiser, Public First