What in the world is there to complain about when you're living in a place full of bells ringing in ancient churches, cars rolling into long gravel drives, the buzz of lawnmowers, terriers barking from the gates of "Hendre Gadno" and "Tree Tops" and "Glan Alarch"? It's difficult to believe that anything could seriously ruffle the tidy, carefully ordered village of Old St Mellons. It's a commuter's dream – isn't it?

Dianne Rees, chairman of Old St Mellons community council, gives a sigh. Let's see, where to start?

There's the heavy traffic from Cardiff and Newport roaring down village roads. The county council hasn't kept its promise to resurface the main road. Hedgerows need to be layered. Grass verges need to be cut. And youngsters were seen drinking in the local park - again. The county council's moved two litter bins and their replacements haven't arrived.

Rees pauses. Oh, all right then. Most of the time it is a dream. She admits that together with the other 1,700 residents of Old St Mellons, on Cardiff's leafy eastern fringes, she's happy to be living in a place that's "simply lovely".

But loveliness doesn't come quite that easily. Chairman for the last three years and vice-chair for the three years before that, Rees says that it's hard work keeping the village in order. "It's almost like a full-time job. You could make it one if you wanted."

A week in local politics
Take this week. As chairman, she's just written an objection to a planning appeal. She's just applied for and got a grant to put central heating into the village hall.

On Saturday, she attended a meeting at the county council's headquarters where her community council made a bid for a grant. It wants to arrange more youth group activities and clean up one of the village churchyards.

Most days, she's busy answering the phone, answering letters complaining about what the county council hasn't done - "Would I please take it up on their behalf?"

But it's all worth it, she says. There's the sense of community power. The elected community council (the same as in Scotland - the parish council is its equivalent in England) gives a voice to village opinion that's loud enough to be heard by Cardiff County Council. It acts as a meeting point between the community council and the village's voluntary groups – the WI, say, and the Scouts and Guides, the luncheon club for elderly residents. It carries out the odd jobs that Cardiff doesn't do – managing the village hall, the playing fields, the burial ground, the war memorial grounds.

More than that, though, there's the "delightful" spirit, the strong individual links forged as a result of the community council's work, that thrills Rees - that makes up for all the paperwork, the hours on the phone, the quarrels with the politicians in Cardiff.

Power to the people
Rees says that the community council shows how ordinary people, and not just professional politicians, can succeed in working together to improve their local environment.

She's passionate about local democracy. People, she says, need to realise they can get involved in politics. "People need to know that they can actually influence the way they live, the way they're taxed, the way their children are educated, the quality of healthcare they can have."

It comes from personal experience. Living in Cardiff proper, she was told that the local school she wanted her 11-year-old son to attend was over-subscribed. So he would have to go to a secondary school five miles away. Since, she says, the Labour-controlled county council wouldn't listen, she was forced to send him to a private school. That made her sit up and look at how the system worked.

Small is beautiful
Rees doesn't think of herself as particularly political. But for the last 10 years she's been a member of her local conservative association, and she's currently deputy chairman of her local ward branch. She joined the Conservatives because she wanted to have a go at improving her son's local environment. She doesn't care for "career" politicians. She doesn't like large-scale, "intrusive" government.

"People handle their own affairs better on a smaller scale," she says. "I think people achieve things better when they're closely involved. Politics should be as close as possible to a community's grassroots."

Her long-standing "commitment to the community" meant that as soon as she had the chance, when her four children were old enough, she began helping out as a Citizens Advice worker. She joined a local scheme teaching parenting skills to underprivileged young mothers. Today, as well as the work she does at the council, she's a school governor and a magistrate.

Your life skills count
Seven elected councillors, together with Rees, her vice chairman and the part time local man who is clerk to the council attend the monthly council meetings. In the last council elections, several councillors retired. So the new, young council is full of people without political experience.

It doesn't matter, says Rees. What they do have - the local pharmacist, the village post master, a retired chairman of a large company, a retired school secretary - are skills, abilities, resources gained from what they've done in "real" life.

The problem with career politicians, she says, despite their polish and their oratory, is that they often lack the life skills needed to help constituents properly.

"You must have some experience of living out in the world, of paying the mortgage, paying the council tax, having children, having elderly parents, needing healthcare for yourself or your children before you actually get to understand the way things work and to see that there are possibilities for change."

Rees has life skills galore. Her two parents - 82 and 83 - live with her. She has four children, the youngest of whom is still at school.

The experience of helping her family – for example, finding a hospital bed for her mother when she had pneumonia - makes her a good councillor, she believes. "It's that kind of experience people can use. The experience of finding a way through the system," she says.

"All you have to do is realise that you too can get involved, that you too can go out of your house and influence how your world is run - even if it's just your village."

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