Meet Your Deputy Mayor- Stephen Remington

We took the time to speak with councillors to learn more about their aims and aspirations as a member of the Looe Town Council, in addition to the hobbies and interests they have outside of work.

The aim of this series is for the reader to ‘meet’ the councillors from a personal perspective.

The series begins by introducing Stephen Remington, Deputy Mayor.

Aims and Aspirations: 

“How can we help?” is the question I like our Council to ask. Our first instinct should be to make it easier for people to find answers and make progress.

• I’d like to help to coordinate volunteering to support our town, to develop initiatives that can help young people who want to settle or remain and build their working lives here, to ensure that those in need can find solutions. I want to help our Council run efficiently and support our excellent staff team.

 

• We live in a historic and fascinating town in a beautiful natural environment; each year I’d love to see further improvements building on our inherited legacy. Our Neighbourhood Plan gives us excellent guidance.

 

• Looe has several key organisations with specific roles and it has been great to see closer working among us. The creation of the new Looe Business Forum is most welcome. Working seamlessly together is surely the best way forward.

• We also need, as a Council, to be robust about things that aren’t so good – anti-social behaviour and crime, homelessness, planning abuses, conflict between pedestrians and traffic. Our powers are limited but we should deploy them effectively!

Working Background

I’ve been a frequent visitor to friends in Looe since the 1970s but my working life has been widespread. My 20 years in the arts culminated with 14 years running Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London after which I ran Action for Blind People for two decades. The arts consolidated my internationalist beliefs and I brought many performing companies to London – dance, opera, music theatre and spectacle – from all parts of the World. Working with people living with sight loss taught me much about deprivation, poverty and exclusion while also inspiring me with heroic stories of rising above challenges and powering to success. I hope that some of my lifelong learning can be of use to our Town Council.

 

Hobbies and Interests 

 

Outside my Council duties I enjoy sailing, walking, reading, music, spending time with friends and family and travel. I have done a good deal of mountain walking, especially in the Highlands, in Spain and in the Black Forest. The climbs get tougher with age but the views from summits seem even greater for the effort.

I’m a hopeless cook and often can’t tell a weed from a flower. These are shortcomings that I have no plans to remedy despite my love of well prepared food and beautiful gardens.

 

If you feel you would be a suited councillor, the position is open and can be applied for via: enquiries@looetowncouncil.gov.uk