A local independent councillor from Whitwell has lambasted Tory claims in their political election leaflets
Karl Austin, who is an Independent Parish Councillor for Whitwell had this to say.
Ahhh local elections and party politics. I hate party politics. If I get anything through the door from other district council candidates I'll comment on that as well.
Right now we have two Conservative candidates for the District Council elections that don't live in the village but are making out that with their monthly surgeries they'll be more accessible than our current and prospective district councillors. Councillors who either live in or work in the village 7 days a week and couldn't be any more accessible and available for people to speak to. So to say current councillors are hard to reach is absolute rubbish.
Sadly I missed them door knocking this morning.
6 points on their leaflet dropped through the door though:
- Tackling crime - Which party has overseen a reduction in police numbers? Which party has overseen funding cuts to intervention measures?
- Sustainable development - There are already rules in place set by the government on money being made available for doctors, schools, transport when new developments happen. That money goes to the county council (controlled by Conservatives right now) or to the local clinical commissioning group. There are formulas for who gets what.
- Darfoulds bridge - I'm not aware of any councillors not supporting this scheme that was put forward by our previous county councillor and pushed forward by our current.
- Improving road safety - Great, but that's going to take police, who we have fewer of.
- Youth provision - Which party removed funding for sure start? Which party has decimated funding for youth provision and intervention measures?
- Accessible councillors - We have one who lives in the village, takes part in the community and is contactable every day of the week and will even come out and see you. That's much better than a monthly surgery. We have another who works in the village and is very accessible because of that. We also have another candidate that lives in the village and again takes part in the community and is equally as accessible in their current role as parish councillor.
There's a further few points on the other side:
- Accessible - see above
- Councillor allowances - If you plan on doing a good job at representing Whitwell you're going to need to spend 2-3 days a week on it - if you end up on any committees then it'll be more. That means unless you only want people who are:
i) Retired
or
ii) Independently wealthy enough to be able to give up 2 or 3 days a week of work
Then you need to pay allowances. Currently at BDC most councillors are getting the basic allowance which is just short of £10,000 per year. If those allowances (which aren't exactly generous for the time spent) are cut then you exclude a large part of the population of Whitwell from ever being able to stand, and that's not very representative. So yes, they may be the highest in Derbyshire, but that's because it's one of the most deprived districts in the country where people can't afford to give up their time without recompense. - Development - See above
- Regular reports - You mean like BDC social media? (granted, not on Facebook). How about the regular InTouch magazine, or the reasonably regular updates from the Labour party?
- Money spent on promotional material - Oh no, it'd be awful if people found out what services are available wouldn't it? Or people from outside the area found out about it and spent money here. Or they found out about local businesses via Bolsover TV and spent money with them. Who would want that? Absolute monsters.
Local Politics Part 2.
This time it's the flyer from current district councillor Peter Roberts. Pete's a nice person and runs one of the few remaining businesses in the village and we always use the shop where we can.
Initial impressions of the flyer, there's a lot on there that was either dealt with in the initial planning or by the parish/district council before he even got involved.
Street lighting is mentioned - Derbyshire County Council will agree to pretty much anything if they think someone else will pay for it. The issue he is referring to is one where the lighting does not meet DCCs own adopted lighting plan. The Parish Council took the view that as it does not meet DCCs own lighting plan and they are the authority already paid by residents to handle street lighting that residents should not have pay again via the parish council to fix an issue of DCC creation (from memory it would have equated to about 7.5% of the Parish Council's budget).
There's mention of continuing to work with the Parish Council - all I can say is that now he is one of our newly elected* parish councillors I hope he turns up to more meetings than he did as our district representative, which wouldn't be hard as he hasn't attended any in 4 years.
For what my opinion may or may not be worth, I've not been impressed or seen much evidence of Cllr. Roberts being effective for Whitwell.
*As there were only 8 candidates for 8 parish council seats, all those that stood as candidates are elected already.