PLEASE allow me to say thank you to all those residents of the Cainscross ward who took their time in voting for me on Thursday, May 5.

Sadly it wasn’t enough to re-select me as your ward councillor for the next four years.

I can honestly say I have done my best for the ward, in that I have stood up for the many residents who came to me for help in their time of need, like planning applications, housing needs, neighbouring disputes, street furniture, pot holes, litter, dog mess, snow, power failures, flooding, taking on the police and the commissioner in asking for and getting more police officers, as well as supporting the special constabulary in there their many road safety campaigns.

Asylum seekers and the many passports and references I have signed over the years.

These are just few of the issues I have helped in people's lives as this is the work of a councillor plus the many hours I have spent in taking very important meetings as chairman, as well as sitting in them.

Joseph de Maistre, the French visionary, states: “Every nation gets the government it deserves”.

Pops added: “You know they say if you don’t vote you get the politicians you deserve!"

Whatever or for whoever you voted for that was your right, and trust those elected will not sit back – as in the latter years some have and taken the allowance from the public purse – but do the work they elected to do!

As for myself, I am forever the optimist and looking for a new door to open just as one has shut!

Mark Rees

Cainscross