ONCE I hitch hiked to Chambery in France to see a friend and I found him sat in the middle of the street trying to sell his record player - this is what the French call a ‘Braderie’, writes Cllr Brian Smedley, Leader of Bridgwater Town Council.

The rest of the street was full of other people selling stuff they also wanted rid of.

In England we have ‘car boot sales’, and that’s what I went to in Somerton this week; the Somerset County Council ‘grab what you can’ car boot and closing down sale.

Somerset is in big trouble only a year after being created as the largest, and most unwanted, unitary council in the country.

Council leader Bill Revans was there as chief auctioneer making it clear we all knew it was the previous Tory council’s fault because they hadn’t maintained adequate council tax levels and now, even with the maximum 4.9% cap, no incoming council could raise cash to cover the massively high outgoings.

I was there as Bridgwater Town Council Leader.

The meeting was the AGM of SALC - the Somerset Association of Local Councils - that’s the organisation representing the 277 town and parish councils across Somerset.

These were the grassroots councils that were being offered first choice at the closing down sale.

Bill said there would have to be cuts, sales of assets, job losses and none that he wanted to do, but the danger of the dreaded section 114 notice (of council bankruptcy) now loomed over us like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.

There were questions from the floor; lots and lots of questions making the session run over considerably; tough questions, some which Bill couldn’t answer, but he’d come mob handed and like the good Prop Forward that he is ‘passed the ball immediately to someone who knew what to do with it’.

That was his finance specialist Cllr Liz Leyshon.

We had to do everything we could to NOT go to section 114 - that would mean the government would send in the commissioners who would then be motivated solely by balancing the books and not by what the community needed.

How do we do this? We can sell stuff, we can stop delivering services, we can sack people, or we can ask the government to give us some more money. The next year would not be very lovely whichever way we went.

But, in every dark corner is a chink of light.

In Bridgwater, we’ve been looking for a way to regain the borough status we lost in 1974 and the keynote speaker in response for SALC was our own town clerk David Mears who explained how towns and parishes could do just that.

Towns like Bridgwater (and we’ve been ahead of this game for several years now) could pick up these services and assets and deliver them better and according to local need.

We could keep our parks and gardens open; we could retain some of the highly skilled staff from the vandalised district councils and we could become the hub for local service provision to our neighbouring parishes.

This is the option we’re going for, and it’s an exciting one, and it’s actually taking back control. Finally!