Via The Cornishman Thu 11 April 2013

Hayle: Workaholic retires

Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Cornishman

IN HAYLE, most of the candidates for town council will win their seats.

There are 18 hopefuls for 15 spaces on the local authority.

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Dick Horwell.

The total includes 12 current councillors standing for re-election and six new faces.

Of the candidates that are new, two – brothers Owen and Colin Philp – have previously been members of the town council and Penwith District Council.

Bob Mims, who is standing as an Independent, is a member of Hayle Chamber of Commerce and Howard Lyons is the chairman of the campaign group Save our Sands and a vice-chairman of the chamber.

Michael Kemp is the gardener for Hayle who has worked closely with the Hayle in Bloom team and David Cocks is a local consultant heavy goods vehicle engineer and a former committee member at Hayle Rugby Club.

Three current members are standing down, including husband and wife duo Chris and Jacqui Head and Richard "Dick" Horwell.

The Heads first got involved with the council after championing the skatepark for Hayle, which was opened in 2006 and being asked to stand.

Mr Head said while he had enjoyed many of the experiences over the past six years he had also found parts of being a local councillor frustrating.

He said: "It is frustrating because the powers that local councils have are extremely limited.

"We have gone through all the changes from originally having Penwith District Council and the unitary body and all their talk of localism.

"My view is it is had been a lot of hot air ... the thing is that in Hayle we have had a tremendous amount of heavy stuff which has been very good. We have ended up with the North Quay development and South Quay.

"We have achieved things."

Mr Horwell, a longstanding town councillor, who Mr Head described as an "absolute workaholic" for the council, is retiring.