Frome is a small market town in Somerset, not far from Bristol.
Ordinary citizens decided they had had enough of political parties running their town council, decided to put up their own candidates under the banner of Independents for Frome. They took control of the town council.
That was five years ago. May 2015, they took all the seats on the council.
If they can do it, anyone can do it, you can do it.
A town council should be there to work with and on behalf of local people, to facilitate, not obstruct, to encourage participation of the locals in all the decision making, to be transparent. All very obvious,and with which most people would agree. So why is it not happening?
To help others, they have written a book, Flatpack Democracy. Unfortunately it is not yet available as an e-book, which would ensure far wider distribution. ideally publish on leanpub, on pay-what-you-want basis.
We need a network of citizen controlled town and cities. It is already happening, Frome in Somerset, Athens in Greece, Barcelona, Madrid and Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Tags: Frome, Independents for Frome
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