Cllr Bryan Thacker
Side A and 10 minutes 51 seconds on side B. Recorded at Fife House at 11am 26th February 2007. Interviewer Andrew Dowsey.Councillor Thacker was born in 1965, Newport-on-Tay and was brought up in Kennoway where his father was a coal-miner. He joined the Scottish National Party in 1990 and after helping out in a couple of campaigns he found himself being elected for the Kirkcaldy district seat, which he won by ousting a Labour councillor from a traditionally safe seat and at age 26 he was also the youngest councillor in Fife (05:30). Bryan thinks that the administrative changes to the council have made it less accessible and flexible with more layers of bureaucracy than the 3-district councils that comprised the old Fife Region. He attended more Community meetings e.g. Tenants Association than Council meetings as he thinks it more important to hear local concerns and issues on a personal level and also introduced `street surgeries`, again so it’s more convenient for local residents to voice, face to face, any problems they may have. For 8 months he worked as a p.a. to an M.S.P. but became disillusioned with politics as he was treated fairly badly and put under a lot of stress and actually considered stepping down as councillor, but he still felt committed enough to helping local people (37:30). With the upcoming local elections in May 2007, Councillor Thacker has decided not to stand again due to personal reasons.Total running time 42 minutes and 49 seconds
