I RISKED my credibility on Monday night when I chaired a high-powered meeting - to discuss forming another council.

Yes, you read that correctly. I led the discussion into forming a third tier of local government in High Wycombe.

I headed up a group who earnestly discussed for more than two hours setting up a new town council.

Followers of this column should be well familiar with my views about the expensive and bewildering council system around these parts.

Readers will be used to me complaining bitterly about the duplication that exists, and you will have seen me repeatedly call for an end to wasteful bureaucracy. Cut local government to the bone and you will have a leaner, more effective and more democratic system, I've always said.

At present, taxpayers in Bucks are cursed and confused by the fact we have a county council, district councils and parish councils.

So why, I hear you cry, was I interested in discussing the formation of High Wycombe Town Council?

The answer is because I believe this, if done correctly, would give people in my hometown a full democratic say in their affairs for the first time.

Almost every other place in Bucks has a parish council apart from High Wycombe. Instead, the town is ruled by a district council which also looks after the affairs of Marlow and Princes Risborough.

But both of those other towns have parish councils, as do areas such as Little Marlow, Hazlemere, Hughenden, Downley, Penn, Piddington and Wheeler End etc etc.

These councils don't have much real power but they do get listened seriously to as an important voice in local issues.

High Wycombe doesn't have the same representation and there is a feeling it sometimes comes off worse than its rural neighbours as a result.

I don't see the logic of pairing the town up with Risborough and Marlow because the areas are so different. And I resent being ruled from Aylesbury which is the home of the county council.

Councils should be all about giving local power to local people. So, in my book, the only logical step would be a town council with beefed-up powers.

Unfortunately, the creation of the new council would come at a cost - initially an estimated £52 per household per year.

Of course I wouldn't be happy paying that and nor would you, but there is a possibility a new efficient council could actually pave the way to us saving money. My ultimate solution would be to have a single unitary authority just serving High Wycombe, its immediate outlying villages and nowhere else.

Experts would scoff at that and say it would be too small. But it would save massive amounts of money.

The meeting on Monday night at the Environment Centre in High Wycombe discussed the matter in detail. Around 20 worthies, many of them district councillors, turned up.

There was immediate opposition to the plan and ironically the first speaker began by using my oft-quoted mantra of duplication and waste.

At the end of the evening, I still hadn't made my mind up, because I cannot be hypocritical and expect people to pay more of the council tax that I have condemned for so long.

But, at the same time, I also cannot sit complacently by and do nothing while High Wycombe is deprived of a full democratic voice.

It turns out the district council has an existing High Wycombe town committee that some believe will do the trick. Our group has now agreed to try to watch it in action in March and see if it genuinely is the answer.

I am aware I may come in for a bucket-load of abuse from taxpayers, but the council system does not work in these parts and sometimes the only way to change an ailing system is try to work with it.

It's easy to sit outside and throw rotten tomatoes at the participants. But the only way to ultimately reform things for the better is to at least try to work out some solutions, rather than just criticise.