I'm no longer wasting a vote on a local councillor who doesn't live in our area.

[Perrygreen]

I've had it with local councillors who are oblivious to the problems residents have in their neighbourhood. Over twenty years the only decent local councillors we've had have been ones who live in approx the same square mile.

In our current lot the only one who ever actions anything is the Tory chap (who I didn't vote for but is lovely) because he lives around the corner. The Labour cllr replies to about 10% of my emails and the stupid Green cllr hasn't replied to one in over two years, despite me sending various environment related enquires / requests and being a peak lefty green hippy voter. They literally don't care unless it's under their noses and they use their legs walking around. I'm not even sure what the labour and Green cllrs have been doing over the years, it's not been sorting out our estate that's for sure. Luckily the new lib dem candidate lives down the street, goes to our nearby parkrun and walks everywhere so I'm pinning my hopes on him this time. <<grumble over>>

Remove candidate in our area is campaigning on improving our run down town when we have a thriving shopping area which is far from run down. Clearly he has chosen it from a suggested menu of issues.

Agree - I don’t think you should be allowed to represent a place if you haven’t lived in it for at least the last 5 years.

Our Reform candidate has proved an address in Anglesey (that’s all the details say), and we are in NW England so presumably he’s a paper candidate that Reform don’t expect to win.

Our Lib Dem candidate (who I would usually expect to win) has also obscured her address - it is in the local authority area but not our town/ward. I am unlikely to vote for her anyway but IMHO local councillors should at least live in the town where the ward is to understand the issue!

I fully agree with you that your local councillors should be tackling the problems in their ward and issues raised by the people who live there. However the fact that they don’t isn't necessarily because they don’t live on your doorstep. It is often difficult for political parties to find suitable people who are willing to stand and that is why they go for people who don’t live in the ward itself.
At a council level it is best to vote for the individual who you think will serve you best regardless of the political party they represent.
Or you could always stand yourself if you feel strongly enough that you are not being represented.

How would that work? You have to propose people who are willing to stand. Often there are no such people in a given area. Ideally a representative should come from the local area but this isn’t always practical.
If you feel strongly about it you can always stand yourself.
A word about the address not being on the ballot paper. Unfortunately in this day and age candidates do not feel safe giving out their address as some have been threatened or received offensive letters etc. That have to consider the safety of their families. There is an option to say “address in ward” on the ballot paper and their election literature will likely give an indication of where they live.

Not "Or you could always stand yourself if you feel strongly enough that you are not being represented."

That has been suggested to me before. Unfortunately I'd get a brick though my window pretty quickly as there's some really dodgy people in my street. I report a lot of stuff and deal with the council but only on an individual level so I can keep my head below the parapet.

Parish Councillors have to have lived or worked in their Parish for a minimum of 12 months in order to be eligible to stand for election. I think it should be a requirement for anyone standing for election to have lived in the community they want to represent for a minimum of 12 month in the lead up to the election , this would also help to prevent prospective candidates being parachuted in to ‘safe’ seats.

Can you not see the irony in your post? YOU don’t want to risk being targeted and yet you want other people to take that risk themselves. Violence against candidates is one reason why some of them live away from their area. It is also why some people do not put their address on the ballot paper, leading, sometimes erroneously, to voters thinking they don’t live in the area.