THE current debate regarding the proposed move of the tourist information centre to the Maltings car park raises the question of the make-up of Salisbury City Parish Council (SCC).

A parish council’s job should be to support its own community and protect the parish from the excesses of a unitary council.

SCC is a party-political council and those councillors who are sponsored by a political party will tend, or be persuaded, to follow the party line. Worse than that is that a number of SCC councillors are also members of Wiltshire Unitary Council, also a party-political council.

Whilst I have no way of knowing which councillors voted in favour of the move, its interesting to note that the make-up of the Services Committee is 10 Conservative, 3 Labour and one Lib-Dem almost exactly the percentage of the votes in favour or against.

If the residents of Salisbury want their voices heard above any party-political bias, they must consider voting only for independents candidates at the next elections. Only then can they be sure that SCC decisions are made in the interests of the local population, not following a party-line which can be influenced by the unitary council.

There's no room for party politics in local democracy.

Stephen Williamson

Salisbury