How do you fight 40 years of personalities and Chinese whispers?
Everyone seems to have an opinion about the council, whether it’s Redruth Town Council, Cornwall Council, or going back even further to Kerrier District Council. Often, it feels like people don’t even know which council they’re talking about; it all gets melded into one. And the opinions aren’t exactly glowing.
There are accusations flying around — people lining their pockets, “stealing” Christmas lights, or back in the day, stopping national retail chains from coming into town (because apparently councillors owned all the shops). And then there’s the “everyone knows the CCTV doesn’t work” line. How do people know? “Common knowledge,” I’m told. But let’s be honest: not every decision will please everyone, and some of these stories have clearly grown in the retelling.
What’s true? What’s not? And does something from 20 years ago really matter today? Maybe it matters, but there’s nothing we can do to change it now.
No answers, only more questions
So how do we turn it around? How do we stop the whispers? Can we stop the whispers? How do we wipe the slate clean, especially when some councillors have been on the council for over a decade, often serving on multiple councils over time? Everyone has opinions about everybody, often based on one decision made years ago. One woman I spoke to didn’t like someone simply because she’d been at school with them 50 years ago!
I think part of the problem is silence. If the council doesn’t talk about what it does, people assume nothing’s happening — and a vacuum quickly fills with stories, often nonsense. Explaining why decisions are made helps people understand them more. Many don’t really understand what the town council does, and that’s fair — the role had changed over time. In recent years, we’ve taken on things like the library, the community centre, and the civic centre.
I sometimes wonder if anyone else really cares. Until we put this all to bed and start afresh, it’s naive to expect people to listen, trust, or believe we’re on their side. And to be honest, who’s going to want to stand up and be a councillor? It’s like inheriting original sin, you take on all the dissatisfaction, gossip, and rumours of what went on before. People generally don’t want to join organisations with bad reputations, especially when we’re talking about volunteer positions.
No whispers from me…I’m loud and proud!
Yes, this is my page, and I’m not sure how I could make it fully reflect the council as a whole, I try. I know some councillors see it as showboating. The staff have their remit and their pages. I guess as a marketing professional it’s possibly easier for me, but I think it would be great if the individual councillors did their bit to help communicate, even if it’s just sharing council posts. Personally, I like being able to write in my own voice, and I don’t really want anyone else speaking for me.
That’s partly why I write a blog and post regularly on Facebook, it’s about transparency and trying to chip away at decades of hearsay.
The staff are currently drafting a communications strategy, and hopefully it will tackle this huge hurdle of years of whispers so we can start moving forward together.
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