Cllr Stephen Conway, leader of Wokingham Borough Council, paid tribute to Phil Creighton, editor of Wokingham Today who will be leaving the publication at the end of June.
At last week’s annual meeting, he said: “I want to thank Phil on behalf of all councillors, for his service to our community.
“Local papers play a key role in sustaining local democracy, and none more so than Wokingham Today, which carries extensive coverage of the council on its pages.
“Sometimes, administrations find reports uncomfortable reading, and I certainly have in this last year occasionally found some uncomfortable reading, but I have always taken the view that we all, as councillors, benefit from the attention.
“The local press gives us, even if we don’t sometimes like it, that attention because if people lose interest in the council, they stop voting in local elections.
“National governments, of whatever complexion, will then feel justified in centralising more power in their own hands.
“So thank you Phil, for your sterling efforts to make sure that people out there in our community understand what the council is doing, and thank you for your service to local democracy.”
The council chamber then rose to give Phil a standing ovation.
