Council Watch

Colchester Council Watch

Some inspirational news from Colchester Council Watch, reproduced from The Light truthpaper.

Shine the Light on Your Local Council

As readers of this paper know well, darkness is always vanquished by light. Here in Colchester we’ve been putting our council in the spotlight. A group of us has been going along and speaking at their meetings for just over a year. Bit by bit, we shine a light on the unlawful and incorrect assertions that have been passed down to them by central government.

We are lucky with the councillors we have in Colchester. Whilst we disagree with a lot of what they say and do, it’s apparent that the majority are good people trying their best. But how can good people make good decisions if they don’t get good information? They can’t. So that’s been our mission—educating them so they can.

We’ve persistently and patiently shown them that the green agenda isn’t remotely green. Wind, solar, EVs and lithium battery production are environmentally destructive and toxic, plus the end products are a potentially lethal fire hazard. They haven’t wanted to listen and they haven’t liked what we’ve said but little by little we’ve made headway. They’ve agreed in principle to a net zero debate and the head of scrutiny has promised to scrutinise the Council’s decision to declare a climate emergency (if he’s re-elected in May!).

After nine months of watching their meetings and learning how the council operates, it became apparent that everyone locally should know what we’ve learned. So the Colchester Council Watch YouTube Channel was born. Every week we take it in turns to watch their meetings which are streamed online. We make notes and time stamp the important parts and then from those notes make a highlights video.

We’ve accidentally ended up with a worldwide audience—people everywhere can relate to the attitudes and inane council procedures and policies the councillors both create and endure! It becomes strangely compelling viewing and of course the councillors themselves watch it as they are in it and want to know what we are saying about them. The video comments section is gold—councillors get direct feedback from the masses in no uncertain terms and it makes a difference.

Every Council needs ‘Council Watchers’—put every last one of them in the spotlight! 

To help people do this, we’ve created a resource folder with all our Council speeches, FOI, emails and research, as well as video tutorials on how to speak to the Council and start your own YouTube channel. If video isn’t your thing then consider creating a website with written articles instead. A template has been created for this.

Reasons to start a Council Watch in your local area:

• It keeps everyone up to date in your local area, so that any issues can be dealt with sooner rather than later
• It enables people to really see the personalities and viewpoints of the councillors they’ve voted for.
• It allows people to see how councils are run and aims to encourage other people to become councillors.
• Our current lack of knowledge is what got us into the state we are in and your own council watch helps to start to address this issue.
• Councils everywhere are either being amalgamated into bigger institutions or they are going bankrupt which means they are even less interested in working for local people.
• In order to turn this around peacefully, we must take action now; we need to get out of this political system and into a people-based system.
• We all need to play our part because, if we don't, every right and freedom will be further eroded.
• This needs to be done in a respectful manner; we cannot assume that everyone within your Council knows the full picture of what is happening. This is part of our collective education.

Here’s a playlist of videos to help you get started: https://bit.ly/council-watching

More help is available in getting started on your Council Watch journey and sharing resources if you email: colchestercouncilwatch@gmail.com and you can then get access to the Telegram channel and more resources and contact others who have already started doing this.

The Great Rising Team has created a [this] web page to further help people ‘Council Watch’ https://the-great-rising.org/council-watch

Existing Council Watch Channels

• Colchester Council Watch https://www.youtube.com/@cccwatch
• North Yorkshire Council Watch https://www.nycw.co.uk/
• Stockport Council Watch https://www.youtube.com/@StockportCouncilWatch-kv7ls
• Eastbourne https://www.youtube.com/@EastbourneCouncilWatch

Get going and get your council in the spotlight today. Local level is where our power is and it’s time we all reclaimed it.

Rachel Mathews

Colchester Council Watch