A Personal look back over his year as Mayor of Woodbridge

My year in office came to an end with a kind friend providing a surprise trumpet finale just as I had finished my closing address at the Annual Town Council Meeting and rose to hand over the chain of office to the Mayor just elected.

I mention this delightful finish to my term in office because it follows a year of the unexpected with lots of new experiences and happy memories. This is after all what should be a typical experience of the twelve months spent as Mayor, particularly as the form and content of most of the Town's committee and every day responsibilities are well known to all Councillors.

However, as those of you who read the local newspaper will know, Town Councils do occasionally have significant issues to resolve which can disrupt the usual pattern of events and make the management and public face of the Council's actions seem strangely discordant with the opinion of the population it serves.

During my tenure, Woodbridge Town Council managed most of its own affairs extremely well through the sterling efforts of the Town Clerk, who provides the stability around which the yearly change in committee responsibilities are seamlessly handled. Where matters usually receive more public focus is when the Council addresses the pressures of change.

Despite the best efforts of some, no town will ever stand still as social and business demands increase in their complexity and scope with an inevitable visual effect on the fabric and nature of Woodbridge. It is how the town can absorb the changes, admittedly sometimes forced upon it, which will determine its future desirability and sense of well - being.

Woodbridge has an enviable environment and many committed volunteers to ensure its lifestyle is kept in balance. But the town's lifestyle has also to be relevant to residents young and old, to business and to the many tourists who stay or visit. Therefore where matters have come to a head over the last year it has usually featured planning and development, parking and traffic management or policing and youth activities in all its guises - good and bad.

To most, Town Planning is an imperfect science where the outcome will stand judgement by current and future generations. A town has to deal with renewal as it cannot be preserved in aspic and opinions will naturally divide on the nature of the change. The major debate on the future of the waterfront is rightly taking time. It is after all, the town's most treasured asset and the tremendous work of the rowing, sailing, water sports and cruising clubs together with the marina and boat yards provide a renewed vitality and strength to the town which should be rightly supported and indeed applauded.

Parking and traffic management issues will always consume time in debate with no clear winners due to the conflict of providing for an ever increasing volume of cars within a restricted area served by streets closely bound by house frontages.

Policing and the general protection of the town are perhaps perceived to be the greater social and most pressing issue to confront Woodbridge. When the cemetery was vandalised it was a personal affront, but when vandalism & graffiti appears across the town it is a reflection of a malcontent difficult to understand with so many activities available to those that really want to channel their effort in alternative ways.

It is important however to keep this issue in some sort of perspective, without becoming an apologist. A national problem, the limitations on police resources are obvious. Those who have the purpose of degrading the appearance of the town are able to anticipate the passing of any number of officers if they have the intent to damage or deface.

Although the skateboard park is now firmly on the agenda and is held up as a beacon of future hope against the occurrence of such senseless acts, surely an appeal possibly through the schools to respect the town will only succeed if the small minority involved in anti – social behaviour, feel part and justly proud of the place they live in.

The Town Council welcomes the Army back to Woodbridge after an absence of nearly two hundred years. The lasting change enacted by the first garrison to the town, provided us with a rich legacy of Georgian fronted buildings and street names. Whilst this time around the change may well be more apparent in the form of economic benefit, the sight of troops again parading in the town will, in its own right, provide another chapter in the social history of Woodbridge which I have been privileged to serve as Town Mayor.