And we agree that the PCC role should not be immune from reform, but by scrapping the one form of genuinely accountable governance, the public’s voice in its local force is lost along, it would seem, with your local police force.
In Bristol and Brighton and Hove their record has consisted of hypocrisy and mismanagement.
If reorganisation becomes an exercise in scale for its own sake, producing larger authorities, remoter leadership and weaker local voice, communities will feel even further removed from the decisions that shape their homes and increasingly disenfranchised.
Children starting school have new demands placed on them both socially and in terms of learning. Reading requires them to focus closely on small details, and also to move their eyes.
Instead of being ‘Open’ they are making more and more financial decisions behind closed doors.
The clearest example of that drift is in their new policy to introduce a 100 per cent Council Tax Premium on second homes. Something we Conservatives refused to do.
We must protect rural communities from inappropriate, infrastructure-poor expansion. Planning is not merely about where we build—it is about who we are as a nation.
The Conservatives gained a seat from the Lib Dems in Harborough. Reform UK gained a seat from Labour in Blackpool and a seat from the Conservatives in Suffolk.
High parking charges are having a negative impact on the High Street. Encouraging more people to use public transport would be beneficial.
Secret rooms and tunnels had somehow been left off the planning application. Once again the government stonewalled parliamentary questions.
People are being broken, and the authorities, including some school leaders, are doing nothing about it.
Ultimately councils need to remember that it is they who serve local residents and taxpayers, not the other way around.
Reform UK gained a seat from Labour in Darlington, a seat from the SNP in West Lothian and seats in South Kesteven from the Conservatives and an independent. The Lib Dems gained a seat from the Conservatives in East Devon.
Heroic defeat is still a defeat despite the heroics. I came second to Reform by 23 votes, which is not good enough. Yet, my result bucked the national polls and the broader trends in recent by-elections, as we increased both our numerical vote and our vote share.