• WE are fast approaching the time when councillors vote for their future “allowances”. Currently, I understand, the basic allowance is just over £11,000; incidentally, almost twice my state pension.

If you chair a Scrutiny meeting your total allowance can be, so far as I can ascertain, up to £41,000. Cabinet members’ allowances are even higher. It may be that my reading of the information on the “new” council website is mistaken.

Personally, I have no beef with councillors getting paid from my council tax but I do question the performance of some of them. We only have to take the issues raised in the New Journal and by correspondents in the Letters pages.

Rarely do councillors respond to such serious issues as transport to the Chase Farm Hospital, rubbish collection, the devastation of Queen’s Crescent Market, the closure of a valuable voluntary youth work project, youth violence, water bills, and the bizarre new website to name but a few.

Add to this my personal experience and friends’ experience of individual local councillors repeatedly failing to answer emails on matters of concern. Of course there are some councillors who give great value for money.

In the private sector shareholders have a say on the remuneration of staff and board members. Should not residents of Camden be given the same opportunity to comment on the performance of their local councillors? .

Perhaps the council could publish the number of surgeries held/missed by each councillor and the number of committees attended/missed as a start.

At present we only get the opportunity once in four years to make our views known. Even then if you are not a member of a political party you have no say in the choice of candidates.

If nothing else councillors should respond to issues raised in the New Journal and on such social media sites as Reclaim Queen’s Crescent.

Hopefully my letter will provoke some councillors not only to respond verbally to tell us what is being considered about an issue raised but also actually do something concrete.

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