The parish of Marden is located
about nine miles south of
Maidstone, the county town of Kent, England. It has a
population of approximately four thousand people.
Marden has had a Parish Council since the end of the
nineteenth century. At present membership consists of eight
men and three women and their terms end in June 2004. This
is the date of the European, County and Parish elections. All
have a very good record of attendence with one notable
exception who scrapes by every year with his minimum of two
obligatory meetings. It is hoped that the attendance records
for the Parish council will be published shortly on this website.
For Borough Council
purposes Marden is part of the Marden and
Yalding ward (including Collier Street and Nettlestead) which has
three councillors to represent it. Until the beginning of 2002
Marden was part of Marden Ward which also included Collier
Street, Hunton and Linton and returned two councillors. This
changed at the May 2002 election to the present arrangements.
For some bizarre reason it was decided that:
The order of retirement of councillors newly-elected in May 2002
shall be as follows:
(a) the first to retire [in 2003] shall be the councillor elected
by
the smallest number of votes; and
(b) the second to retire [in 2004] shall be the councillor elected
by the next smallest number of votes.
In 2002 Rodd Nelson-Grace (Con), Liz McGannan (Con) and
Simon Antonisz (Con) were duly elected.
In 2003 Simon Antonisz who had gained the lowest number of
votes the previous year retired. He did not stand again, which
was probably as well because he had already moved out of the
parish some months previously without letting anyone know -
including the Borough Council. Annabelle Blackmore was elected
in his place and will remain there until 2007. Unfortunately the
rest is both history and the present.
Liz McGannan was elected as an Independent in 2000, and
became a Conservative in 2002, possibly due to the reasons
given below. She has probably attended less Parish council
meetings than even Annabelle Blackmore, citing other more
important activities, such as tennis, as a reason. She is seldom
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seen at village events, and not often at the Borough
Council. It
seems she stayed on much against her will and has now had
the decency to resign (21 October) amidst much rancour in the
constituency party.Rodd Nelson-Gracie is always at Marden
Parish Council
meetings, and we understand at the other villages as well. He
seems to do the work of three people - but then, of course, he
has to.
It is interesting that up until 2002 Marden had nearly always
returned Independent members. The structure of the ward
meant that all the candidates were well known to the electorate
and did not need a party machine. However Yalding and
Nettlestead are not naturally part of Marden's make-up and it
would be difficult for independent candidates to succeed,
however sympathetic they were to Conservative policies.
This has meant Marden has become pivotal in the balance of
power on the Borough Council, which has 21 seats each for the
Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberals and
Labour have obviously given up on the ward - neither bothered
to send anyone canvassing during the last elections. The
Conservatives were more hardworking: however their
candidate, Mrs Blackmore, did fail to mention on the doorstep
that she was going to pursue her new system of representation
from Bermuda.
On a County Council
level Marden is part of the Maidstone Rural
South ward and has Eric Hotson (Con) as its member. He is fully
supportive of his Borough Councillors - although the rumour
that he allegedly lost Elizabeth McGannan's resignation letter is
surely false. [Ed - now proved to be true!]
As for Westminster
- Marden, as part of the Maidstone and
Weald constituency, is represented by the Rt Hon Ann
Widdecombe (Con) who has support beyond her party
affiliations through her hard work in the constituency. Her views
on the Missing Councillors affair are unknown. We are sure she
has some, but she is being uncharacteristically quiet on this
occasion.
And last (and probably least) our closest European Parliament
member is Peter Skinner who is one of the eight MEPs who represent the South East.
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