RESIDENTS in Selby need to get more involved with the way the council makes decisions, the leader of the town’s Labour party has claimed.

Currently, there are five Community Engagement Forums (CEFs), which cover Selby and almost 80 parishes, with boards covering up to 20 towns at a time.

The forums are hosted by district, county, parish and town councillors, and representatives from the police and fire service, and the public is invited to these monthly meetings to discuss concerns or issues and make suggestions which could be taken to council meetings.

Councillor Steve Shaw-Wright, who is chairman of the Central CEF, said the public attend the meetings most often when they have an issue to raise with an individual councillor, but the meetings were not a real forum for consultation.

He said: “People will attend if they have an issue or grievance or want a ‘soap box’ to stand on. However once they have vented their spleen or the issue has been solved they don’t continue to attend, and why should they? Is a resident of Church Fenton really concerned about a blocked culvert in Barlby? I think not.”

Coun Shaw-Wright said the idea of public engagement was to be encouraged.

He said: “The basic idea of engagement with the community is a good one. However, because of the rural nature of most of the District Council and the council’s desire to split the district in to five areas, this results in a lack of a ‘community’ to engage with. A way forward would be to look again at the areas covered and let the communities decide if they want the CEF’s to continue. At the moment it appears, by the lack of attendance, they do not engage with the process, so it needs a major rethink.”

As a suggestion, which may be put to council, Coun Shaw-Wright said a new model to divert funding to individual wards may be a viable alternative.

Coun Shaw-Wright said: “Basically, we would want to keep a small pot for ward use, but a larger pot for wider community activity. I believe that the whole structure of the CEFs needs looking at. If the pot of funding that is attached to each CEF was redirected in to a grant pot for the district as a whole, which would provide better use of the money, I would expect the CEF’s to become irrelevant.”