Governance and Public Services
The town council is made up of 16 members, and is based at the Town Hall, Magdalene Street. The town hall was built in 1818 and has a two-storey late Georgian ashlar front. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Glastonbury is in the local government district of Mendip, which is part of the county of Somerset. It was previously administered by Glastonbury Municipal Borough. The Mendip district council is responsible for local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection and recycling, cemeteries and crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism. Somerset County Council is responsible for running the largest and most expensive local services such as education, social services, the library, road maintenance, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning.
The town's retained fire station is operated by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, whilst police and ambulance services are provided by Avon and Somerset Constabulary and the South Western Ambulance Service. There are two doctors' surgeries in Glastonbury, and a National Health Service community hospital operated by Somerset Primary Care Trust which opened in 2005.
Glastonbury falls within the Wells constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. The Member of Parliament is Tessa Munt of the Liberal Democrats. It is within the South West England (European Parliament constituency), which elects six MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.
Glastonbury is twinned with the Greek island of Patmos, and Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Read more about this topic: Glastonbury
Famous quotes containing the words governance, public and/or services:
“He yaf me al the bridel in myn hand,
To han the governance of hous and land,
And of his tonge and his hand also;”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors of all the drawing-rooms in her face.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)