Tannia Shipley
If you live in Weston Green you're lucky to have Tannia Shipley as one of your Councillors. She's committed, conscientious, and caring. And without falling prey to the partisan backstabbing that she dislikes intensely when the political parties meet in Council, she's effective through hard work, good preparation, and astute advocacy. I've seen her with one of her daughters devote a Saturday night to surveilling a fast-food restaurant to establish that their claims in support of a planning application were disingenuous. She's in this heart and soul.
Raised among South Wales miners, Tannia qualified as a teacher at Seaford College and greatly enjoyed teaching, notably as Head of House at a tough girls' comprehensive. Supporting pupils with problems, she made friends and found satisfaction in being involved and helping others. When her time was absorbed in raising her own children and taking care of her mother, she still volunteered to teach gifted poorer children on Saturdays.
Tannia, a long-time citizen of Weston Green, was attracted by the Residents' Association's independence of party politics and by its grassroots approach, and agreed to stand for the Association in 1999. She won by some 60 votes. In the two elections she's since contested, she increased this margin to several hundred. In Council she attends all full Council meetings and sits on the Environmental Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the Licensing Committee and the East Area Planning Sub-Committee. Tannia is also Chairman of the R.C. Sherriff Trust and attends the Council's Cultural Strategy Focus Groups. She gets great satisfaction from helping members of the community find their way through the bureaucratic maze to the funds, institutions and individuals that can help them. Particularly the elderly: Tannia is active within CHEER (Concern and Help for East Elmbridge Retired), is a Trustee of the Elmbridge Trust for Older People and a member of the Elmbridge Older People Advisory Body. These commitments add up to over 120 meetings a year plus a huge planning load - the stack of current planning dossiers on top of her filing cabinet is three feet high. At times the workload can be oppressive, and certainly not matched by a Councillor's small emoluments. So why does Tannia do it? "I suppose it's because I do care a lot about the place I live, and I get joy from being able to help others get the right things done for them." And you know she means it.
Her husband Nigel, a shipbroker by day, takes time out on his 900cc motorbike. They met on a train. Tannia, determined to find some conversation to pass the time, sat next to him in an empty carriage after asking redundantly whether anyone else was sitting there. Nigel did the right thing. He has learned to accept his fate.
When I left, Tannia was on the phone to get Network Rail to unblock their culvert causing floods under the railway bridge, and wondering who to lean on for money to finance lighting for the spooky alley that leads up to Esher station. I wish we could find someone like that to be Prime Minister.