Councillor Pat Ball retires through ill health
Councillor Pat Ball has decided to ‘call it a day’ as a local elected representative due to her continuing serious ill health. Councillor Ball served the Dukes Ward of Sefton Council which constitutes the Southport town centre and West Birkdale.
Fellow Dukes Ward Councillor Tony Dawson led tributes to his colleague’s work at the Sefton Council meeting when the chair of the meeting, Councillor Robert Brennan announced that Pat Ball had submitted her resignation.
Tony Dawson said:
“Pat’s entire approach to her job as councillor has always been service to the people. She was not a ‘politician’ at all in that sense.”
“I have kept in touch with Pat and her family during her long illness and she has been working hard to try to recover. But Pat would not want the people of the area to remain without the level of service which they deserve if she did not feel she was going to get back to full fitness.”
“Pat always genuinely co-operated on ward matters. I remember the wicked smile she had when we went out together for our joint photo with the new ‘Birkdale’ sign we had sited on Lulworth Road when Pat told me the Conservatives would tell her off for sharing this photo but she didn’t care.”
“Having suffered from a debilitating illness myself for the past six months, not able to deliver thousands of newsletters every month as I normally have done, I know how bad it feels to not be giving of one’s best. But I at least am now lucky enough to be able to get out to the odd meeting if I plan my time out in advance – and I can do a lot for my constituents by phone and through email. I am also, touch wood, slowly recovering with my doctors’ help.”
“I genuinely believe that, though it is not really desirable, in these hard times, each ward can survive with only two councillors rather than three, which would save over £300,000 per year to spend on much-needed local services. But, for the past six months, Dukes Ward has only effectively had two halves of a councillor, since we have had one councillor totally-debilitiated, one councillor partially-debilitated and roughly half of the ward’s residents have felt unable to approach the third councillor who is presently involved in a protracted trial for money laundering.”
“I hope that very soon we shall have a replacement councillor who will want to serve all the communities of Dukes Ward with both ability and understanding of the needs of the areas and the passion which Pat and I have shared.”