WOLDS WEIGHTON NEWS
from CLLR MIKE STATHERS
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE COUNCIL
AND ONE OF THE THREE ELECTED MEMBERS REPRESENTING THE
WOLDS WEIGHTON WARD
INTRODUCTION
Four years ago, I was
instrumental in the launch of the Western Parishes Liaison Group, a forum where
Parish Council chairs and clerks from many of the 28 Wolds Weighton Parishes
and later the six Pocklington Provincial parishes came together to discuss issues
affecting their communities and to ask for help and intervention from the Ward
councillors.
Clearly, this Group is currently
unable to meet, certainly not in the form of attended meetings, so I felt it
was important to bring you up to date on just a few of the key issues affecting
our towns and villages.
MY
ROLE AS ONE OF YOUR WARD COUNCILLORS
I was first elected to the East
Riding of Yorkshire Council in 2015 and spent several years learning how best
to represent our residents at County Hall, serving on various planning
committees, the ERYC Pensions Committee and the Humberside Police and Crime
Panel.
In May 2019, I was given a role
on Cabinet and handed one of the largest portfolios, Planning and Enhancing
Communities.
In July, this year, I was elected
Deputy Leader of the Council, working with all Cabinet members but focusing my
efforts on Covid 19 Recovery, our housing strategy, affordable homes and
communications. While this is a great honour and generates a significant
workload, I am still a Ward councillor first and foremost.
COVID
19 PANDEMIC
The biggest challenge facing all
of us is facing up to and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. This is piling
the pressure on every one of us, on our lifestyles, our employment, our
shopping and, most of all our health.
It will also significantly impact
on the financial health of ERYC. In the next few weeks, councillors will be
entering into the budget setting process where we fix our financial programmes
for the next year, making sure we can continue to deliver the 600-plus services
your Council provides.
The full financial impact of the
pandemic will not be known for some time but our officers will be working hard
to balance the books even though we could well face substantial loss of income
from our leisure services and as a result of Council Tax defaults and
reductions in business rate payments as Covid takes its financial toll on
families and businesses.
ERYC is one of the highest
performing local authorities in the country and a financially strong organisation
and I am confident that we will remain strong and well balanced financially in
the coming years.
Along with the Leader, Cllr
Richard Burton, I receive almost daily updates on the pandemic and how it is
affecting our residents, but one thing we can all do is keep a close watch on
our communities, especially the elderly and vulnerable in our villages.
As Ward and Parish councillors,
we should all be doing this - asking our posties to let us know if they have
any concerns about individuals, recruiting delivery men and women to act as
look-outs, talking to our refuse collection teams - all in the hope they will
be the collective eyes and ears of our communities, looking out for our
residents, especially those who live in the more remote villages, farms and
lanes of Wolds Weighton.
FREE
SCHOOL MEALS
The question of whether or not we
should provide free school meals for some of our school children during
holidays has become a hot topic, a vexed issue due to the Government’s unpopular
stance. We know there are many needy families in the East Riding and no one
wants to see any child go without food.
That’s why myself and the Leader
met with our Chief Executive on Monday morning (Oct 26) to tell her that if the
Government won’t help, we will. Within four hours, the Leader and myself had
secured just over £100,000 of funding from reserves to enable us to offer
vouchers to families in need, vouchers that have to be applied for but can
quickly result in £15 per child being paid directly into the parents’ bank
account.
DEVOLUTION
This summer, Government tasked
ERYC and Hull City Council with producing a foundation document that could, if
eventually accepted, lead to the formation of a Combined Mayoral Authority
(CMA). Both ERYC and HCC would continue to exist as unitary authorities,
delivering the services they deliver today, with the same identities, the same
structure and the same number of councillors.
However, sitting above the
current structure would be a Cabinet consisting of three senior elected members
from each authority led by an elected Mayor. That elite unit would be largely
responsible for what we call the ‘big ticket” projects, such as major
infrastructure schemes, strategic employment opportunities, business support
and inward investment.
Should the CMA be accepted and
established, it would receive a £25m per annum ‘gain share’ fund for 30 years.
This sounds a lot but in reality it isn’t. We, along with Hull City, have asked
in our submission for funding amounting to £1.6bn to be spent on a huge range
of projects. One of the key benefits of a CMA is that decisions on large-scale
expenditure, historically and currently made mostly at Whitehall, would be made
here.
As elected members who are in
daily dialogue with our residents, we know that this will not be readily
welcomed by many in the East Riding, but we have been forced into a corner,
largely because our local authority neighbours to the north are being pushed
into full local government reorganisation, the two south bank unitary
authorities have chosen to join with a Greater Lincolnshire while West and
South Yorkshire have already decided to go their own way with elected Mayors.
The joint ERYC/HCC submission was
presented to Government in early September and as I write we have not received
its response. When we do, the Leader of ERYC will unveil detailed plans for a
comprehensive consultation programme with our residents so you will have your
chance to air your views.
THE
WHITE PAPER - PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
Many Town and Parish Councils
have grave concerns over the very radical changes this White Paper is
proposing. So do I.
I spoke at Full Council recently,
basically to urge ERYC to send a strong message back to Government that we
don’t like much of their proposal and that the planning boffins in London
should think again.
Very briefly, the White Paper
proposed the biggest change in our planning system since the 1940s and I feel
it could reduce our community involvement in the planning decision-making
process.
Here in East Yorkshire, our
planning performance is officially recognised as being among the best in the
country, so why change it? We receive 6,500 applications a year, 90 per cent of
which are successfully dealt with under officer delegations and with 95 per
cent being determined on time.
It’s aim is to streamline the planning
system and calls for greater use of digital technology, more brownfield
development, new homes to be built quicker, replace the current developer
contribution system with an infrastructure levy and easing of permitted
development rights.
Many planning authorities,
including ERYC, have expressed their concerns at the proposals, believing they
could represent too much change too soon.
I’m all in favour of progress but
I refer you back to my earlier comment that I am a Ward councillor first and
foremost, elected to speak up for the residents of Wolds Weighton and even
though this proposal has come from our Conservative Government and even though
I am a Conservative councillor, the views of our residents remain top priority
so my message to Boris is TAKE IT BACK AND THINK AGAIN!
So there we are……just a snapshot
of some of the huge challenges we face in the East Riding. In addition, there
are childrens’ services to be maintained, pressures on adult social care, potholes
to be repaired, bus services under threat, grass verges to be cut, roads to be
repaired, village drains cleared …. the list is endless, but with the help of
our friends in the Town and Parish Councils the work goes on.
Thank you for reading and I hope
you found some if not all of the above of interest. Please feel free to contact
me at any time or speak with my Wolds Weighton Ward colleagues, Cllr Leo
Hammond and Cllr David Rudd.
I know it’s early but let me wish
everyone a very Happy Christmas. Stay safe, stay well, most of all look after
each other.
MIKE
STATHERS
councillor.stathers@eastriding.gov.uk
NOTE
As Deputy Leader, I also
represent the Council on various regional and national bodies, including:
East
Riding Local Development Framework
Flood
Protection and Resilience Board
Housing
Tenant Forum
The
County Councils Network
The
Local Government Association
Transport
for the North Scrutiny Committee
York,
North Yorkshire and East Riding Housing Board
East
Riding Rural Partnership
Humber
and Wolds Rural Action
Pocklington
School Governor
No comments:
Post a Comment