A CAMPAIGN for Bishop's Stortford to ditch Hertfordshire and become part of Essex is being mooted by disgusted residents' representatives who claim that East Herts District Council is "abandoning" the town.
The Bishop's Stortford Civic Federation is mobilising opinion ahead of its annual meeting next week following news that the council is to sell the 90-year lease of its The Causeway HQ and centralise in Hertford, leaving a skeleton workforce in Stortford.
Federation chairman Richard Hannah told the
Observer: "In spirit, the county and district councils abandoned our town years ago, so this latest plan will simply bring appearances into line with reality.
"We are being governed by faraway people who know little about our town and care even less, except for the money we contribute through taxes.
"We've got to the point where the local authorities who are elected to represent our interests appear to be incapable of doing anything except trashing the town and relocating their own staff as far away as possible.
"We think the time may have come to look over the border to Essex and Uttlesford to see whether a transfer to their local control might serve the town's interests better."
At the AGM in the Charis Centre next Thursday (Mar 26) at 8pm, the federation will ask its residents' associations to consult their members whether they would support a campaign for Bishop's Stortford "to abandon Herts County Council and EHDC control, since long ago they abandoned us".
Mr Hannah pointed out that Stortford was the fastest-growing town in East Herts and accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the district's population. Its population is about 35,000 compared with 25,000 in Hertford.
Yet he points out that over the years Herts and Essex Hospital has been downgraded to a district treatment centre, the town's Jobcentre, magistrates' court and mental health unit have been relocated to Hertford and the opening hours at Stortford police station have been cut.
"No development proposal is unsuitable in the eyes of Herts Highways," added Mr Hannah, critical of the potential, under the council's centralisation scheme, to redevelop The Causeway car park for another shopping centre and multi-storey car park.
(poll 914)