Who is your clerk? Local Council Clerk Week: 10 – 14 June 2024
Do you know your Redenhall with Harleston Town clerk? It’s Clare Crane and we are very lucky to have Emma Chandler as the Deputy Clerk.
Both Clare and Emma work with your councillors to make sure that Redenhall with Harleston Town Council provides the services you need in your local neighbourhood. Both Clare and Emma run the council meetings to which you are invited and are both trained and qualified in a range of disciplines to make sure the council runs properly and within the law. They’ll be the ones writing to your local MP, liaising with the district/county council about changes to speed limits, and potholes, applying for funding grants for local projects, researching complex planning issues, running the council’s finances and managing community buildings and events.
Clerks are professionals and serve around 10,000 local councils in England and Wales. These councils emerged in 1894 to give a democratic voice to local people and they’ve changed enormously in that time, particularly during the last 20 – 30 years. They are real place shapers and, today, many manage and maintain parks, sports facilities, skateparks and recreation grounds, play areas, allotments, community and youth centres, car parks, public toilets, cemeteries, street cleaning, run events and much more. Most of all clerks and councillors are advocates, the voice for their communities.
Whatever your local council is delivering for your community, your clerk will be at the heart of getting it done. They provide the services that we all notice the most in our neighbourhoods but, disappointingly, they’re often not properly recognised for just how much they do.
Clerks are celebrated in other countries and Local Council Clerk Week aims to help raise the profile of this important profession here and explain the work clerks do on behalf of town, parish and community councils.
For more information about clerks and the work of your local council, please contact Redenhall and Harleston Town Council at enquiries@harleston-tc.gov.uk