Cllr Alan Dean

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Stansted North on Uttlesford District Council and former Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Learn more

Read more on this

Read more on this

KEITH MACKMAN

by Alan Dean on 26 October, 2016

I learned with sorrow yesterday of the untimely death on Monday of Keith Mackman. Keith was a former district councillor for Great Dunmow and a regular contributor to this blog.

News so far is limited, but according to The Press and Journal (Highlands & Islands) on  25 Oct 2016, “A diver died as he was about to explore Scapa Flow in Orkney yesterday”.

Keith was a keen diver as well as an assiduous and devoted member of Uttlesford’s planning committee. So much so, he once returned from a diving trip to Scotland especially to speak at a committee meeting on an application about which he held passionate views.

Keith held his opinions intensely and he would often express them robustly, being no one’s place man, but always his own man. This brought him into regular conflict with the leadership of his Conservative council group. He eventually left them to help form the Residents for Uttlesford group that was successful in 2015 in supplanting his former colleagues in Saffron Walden. Ironically, at the same time last year, Keith lost his own seat in Great Dunmow to a Conservative. He never forgave the electorate of Dunmow for spurning him as their community champion. In reality, he probably only lost because the local elections coincided with a General Election, when voters are more likely to follow national trends.

I will miss Keith Mackman and his often strident comments on these web pages. I often had to moderate them; he could be over-personal in his attacks. We were polar opposites over the EU referendum and Brexit, so I was not immune from his sharp tongue.

I think Keith left behind a set of councillors at Uttlesford who increasingly have minds of their own and refuse to be told what to think and vote. That is a good legacy to bequeath to local democracy.

   5 Comments

5 Responses

  1. Geoff Powers says:

    Very sad to hear this news.

  2. Steve Drums says:

    Oh no, what shocking, awful news. One of my favourite councillors while working at UDC, I will never forget him making the effort to come into the office to wish me a fond farewell, despite him being bandaged and in pain in the immediate aftermath of a car accident. Such a kind gesture. We subsequently corresponded and I came to respect his passionate, articulately expressed views (while not always agreeing with them!).
    RIP Keith.

  3. John Mackman says:

    On behalf of my Mother, myself and my family I wish to express our gratitude to everyone that has taken the time to write such kind words on receipt of this awful news. Bereavement is rarely a welcome event and In time, the facts of what happened will become more widely known, but I hope people will share in the comfort we have derived in knowing that Keith left us all, on a beautiful day, in a beautiful location amongst friends, doing something he loved.

  4. David Barnes says:

    I only knew Keith a short while as he delivered our newspapers, and I will miss our early morning chats, and I will never forget how much he was looking forward to his trip to Scapa Flow in the weeks before

  5. David Morson says:

    I greatly admired Keith for his sense of justice and fairness in planning matters and for his unswerving support for the residents of my previous ward Elsenham and Henham.
    I am very grateful for the independent courage he showed.

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>