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 newspaper reader says: this party is destroying itself through such mistakes. My higher politics says: a party that makes such mistakes is finished—it has lost its instinctive sureness.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)