The Conservatives can make a crucial difference to their communities in this chapter by actively, positively and constructively engaging with property owners to prevent sales to less sympathetic third parties.
The Conservatives gained a seat from Labour in Breckland and a seat from Reform UK in Norfolk. The Green Party gained a seat from Labour in Peterborough.
Every hour an officer spends carrying out work that another agency should be doing is an hour they are not preventing crime or protecting victims.
Expecting councillors to police the behaviour of every follower, every comment, every stranger who tags or replies to them, across multiple platforms, is unrealistic and unworkable.
The high street is deeply embedded in British culture. Brits of all generations have felt a strong attachment to their row of local shops. The reverse holds today, with boarded-up shops often symbolising neglect, a lack of pride, and economic decline.
This campaign is personal to me. I live here. My family is here. I run a business here. I know what it means to manage money, employ people, take responsibility and make decisions that cannot just be hidden in a press release when things get difficult.
The Conservatives gained a seat from the Lib Dems in Stratford-on-Avon and a seat from an independent in Pembrokeshire. Reform UK gained a seat from Labour in South Lanarkshire and a seat from an independent in Flintshire. The Green Party lost a seat to Labour in Camden and a seat to the Lib Dems in Lambeth.
Whether the role survives beyond 2028 is, in one sense, beside the point. The people of Norfolk still deserve someone prepared to spend every day of the next two years making their communities safer.
Councils purchasing commercial office blocks, hotels and shopping centres, building substantial property portfolios on the basis of low interest rates and overly optimistic investment returns has left an enormous burden on taxpayers.
A planning system can only function properly when the wider economy supports investment, controls inflation and rewards enterprise.
Holding planning permissions but not using them; is not a consequence of rapacious capitalism. It is a failure of local government management.
The Conservatives lost seats to the SNP in Aberdeenshire, an independent in Cheshire West and Chester and the Lib Dems in Powys. Reform UK gained seats from independents in Torfaen and Powys and a seat from Labour in Harborough.
What is Reform going to achieve by having its elected representatives play a part – even if only through scrutiny committees – in the hard choices that have to be made?
Simply pushing for more devolution as a fix fails to reconcile the dodgy foundations the current local government settlement is built upon.