Council "new broom"

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 23rd Oct 2005

Within hours of taking up office as North Somerset Council's Executive Member for Strategic Planning Cllr John Crockford-Hawley has already made his mark - literally.

The former Head of Geography at Wyvern School is used to wielding the red pen and now the same colour ink is flowing at the Town Hall.

"I am not prepared to see documents going out for public consultation which are filled with jargon, fashionable phraseology and unintelligible sentence construction. Computers and photocopiers have created a desire for excess.

"All too frequently that which can be conveyed in two pages ends up occupying a whole book, said Cllr Crockford-Hawley, adding that "effective communication is a two-way process and in order to both understand and be understood we must use clear, straightforward, concise English. I want the public to actually understand what we are saying; that's not too revolutionary is it?".