Politics
Like many other shire districts, authority over North West Leicestershire is shared between the district council and the county council. Areas of responsibility of the district council include local planning, building control, council housing, refuse collection, recycling, and some leisure services and parks.
The district council is currently controlled by 38 councillors who are elected every four years; the last election took place in May 2011 and saw the Conservatives hold onto control after previously winning it for the first time since its creation in 1973. The current political make-up of the council is as follows:
| Political party | Seats | Current Council (2011–2015) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Conservative | 21 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Labour | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Liberal Democrat | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The council has a five-member executive known as the Cabinet which is made up of councillors who have special responsibilities and power. As the Conservatives won overall control of the council in 2007, they hold all of the seats on the cabinet.
| Position | Councillor | Respective Ward | |
| Leader of the Council | Richard Blunt | Appleby | |
| Deputy Leader | Alison Smith | Kegworth & Whatton | |
| Portfolio Holder for Community Services | |||
| Portfolio Holder for Planning and Engagement | Trevor Pendleton | Kegworth & Whatton | |
| Portfolio Holder for Housing and Customer Services | Roger Bayliss | Ashby Holywell | |
| Corporate Portfolio Holder | Nicholas Rushton | Breedon | |
Read more about this topic: North West Leicestershire
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“The Germans—once they were called the nation of thinkers: do they still think at all? Nowadays the Germans are bored with intellect, the Germans distrust intellect, politics devours all seriousness for really intellectual things—Deutschland, Deutschland Über alles was, I fear, the end of German philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)