Taxi Driver Online

Evening News (Edinburgh)

October 30, 2006, Monday

HEADLINE: Licensing chief Attridge calls time on career as councillor

BYLINE: IAN SWANSON Scottish Political Editor

CITY licensing chief Phil Attridge is to quit the council at next year's elections.

He said that he had decided not to stand again because he did not approve of councillors staying on for too long and the new voting system would have meant representing a much larger ward.

He has been a councillor for ten years - two years on the former Edinburgh District Council and eight on the city council. Councillor Attridge has been a member of Edinburgh's licensing board, which oversees pubs and clubs, since 1999 and chairman since 2003.

He previously served as vice-convener and then convener of the licensing committee, dealing with taxi and other civic licences. Today he said he had decided it was time to go.

He said: "I've had a decade and I've always been a believer in spreading democracy around. "People shouldn't be there in perpetuity or they start to become the system instead of being there to keep an eye on it."

Cllr Attridge, who represents the Lorne ward, said he would be continuing his job as a driver with Lothian Buses.[/b]

"I'm not going away - I'll still be active politically. "But it will be nice to have weekends off. I'll be glad to get a life again." He had been expected to stand in the new Leith super-ward, where Labour was originally planning to field two candidates. But it is now likely to put forward only one, Gordon Munro, currently councillor for Harbour. Cllr Attridge said it had taken him a while to make up his mind not to seek re-election.

But he said: "You have to move on and give other people chances." And he said that the new voting system and the larger wards meant that, if elected, he would have had three times the number of constituents to look after.

Cllr Attridge is the latest City Chambers stalwart to announce he will not be standing for re-election next year. Edinburgh was already set to lose almost 44 years of experience in councillors Frank Russell and Brian Fallon.

Sighthill representative Councillor Russell, who is a former deputy leader of the Labour ruling group and the current human resources leader for the council, will have been a councillor for 19 years by the time of the poll next May.

And Councillor Fallon will have completed almost 25 years of public service by the time he stands down. The Murrayburn councillor has said he plans to take six months off to spend with his family after leaving the council before making a firm decision about his future. Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat Fred Mackintosh and Labour's Donald Anderson are leaving the city council to pursue political careers at a national level.

Councillor Anderson, former council leader, will stand in the Edinburgh South seat against Mike Pringle in next year's Scottish elections.

Councillor Mackintosh will also be standing in Edinburgh South, but he is going to try to oust Labour MP Nigel Griffiths in the next General Election to win a place at Westminster.
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I'm surprised that the article hasn't mentioned the up to £20k pay offs that retiring councillors are getting if they stand down at these elections.

There are *a lot* of councillors in Angus, Dundee and Perth not standing in the next elections and this is surely due to the pay offs, and this been the cause of some controversy in all these councils, so I'm surprised the Edinburgh article is silent on this.