CAMPAIGN: Somerset Residents REJECT Unitary Authorities AGAIN

 

Lib Dem, Labour, Green or Tory
SAME OLD STORY

 

Despite our country being in a Covid-19 Crisis throughout 2020, elected Lib Dem and Tory councillors in Somerset have been trying to sneak through changes to how YOU are governed and how YOUR money is spent. They've done it using money that could be spent on Covid recovery.

And now we know that what Somerset Independents told these councillors:

• the timing is wrong, 
• the idea is wrong, 
• residents don't support it

- was absolutely correct. 

Because the people have spoken in two separate surveys, paid for by taxpayers because councillors spent your money to prove what residents already knew. Yes, really.

In one survey, 71% of 2,046 residents surveyed as a representative sample of Somerset adults said that they did not support the Stronger Somerset proposal of two more unitary authorities, as proposed by South Somerset, Somerset West and Taunton, Sedgemoor and Mendip district councils. 

And 86% of residents surveyed said they did not support the One Somerset proposal of one unitary authority for all of Somerset. The Somerset county boundary excludes North Somerset and the parts of Somerset in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority areas. So it would not have led to "one" Somerset, but three. Anyway...

The question was already a biased question, asking them what restructure they would choose. So this is the best that they could manage.

In 2007, a postal poll of residents resulted in about the same result - 82% saying no to a unitary authority.

SO NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE 2007 AND THEIR PROPOSALS ARE A WASTE OF MONEY DURING A NATIONAL CRISIS!

Instead of getting their priorities right, and listening to residents, the councillors of the national parties have been spending YOUR money on a futile exercise to re-organise our councils.

This is why we were calling for a Referendum of ALL Somerset residents, because YOU should have your say.

But councillors carried on spending your money on this futile and offensive exercise.

Somerset resident Alan Guest, who has lived in Somerset since 1988 and worked for the County council from 1996 to 2010, told us:

"It's all well scripted self promotion and no substance or as they say where I come from originally, it's all fur coat and no knickers! They keep pumping out the same old same old, in the mistaken belief that if they keep telling us over and over we will eventually take it as the truth."

Mr Guest's view is echoed by the over 158,000 people who voted against a unitary in 2007, and also by those who responded to these new surveys.

The survey results completely justify our questioning of the decisions and the money spent.

Yet Somerset's councillors carried on, despite that 2007 postal poll of Somerset residents which showed - again, that 82% of residents DID NOT WANT a unitary authority. The poll was conducted by independent body Electoral Reform Services, and jointly paid for by the five district councils back then.

Roll forward to 2020, and councillors used more public money to produce a report, the FoLGIS (Future of Local Government in Somerset) report. Which councillors and council officers under instruction of councillors then worked to discredit and undermine, variously describing it as wrong and discredited. The report included a very balanced piece of work by academics at De Montfort University. But that work was shoved into the Appendix. De Monfort's work showed that these types of amalgamations don't work - not in the UK, not in Europe and not across the world.

But the Tory councillors on Somerset County Council didn't listen to the experts. And they did not listen to the residents. 

Instead, Tory councillors spent even more taxpayers money on their "One Somerset" proposal for a single unitary authority to replace all four district councils and the county council. They even voted to STOP YOU HAVING YOUR VOTE IN MAY 2021 IN THE COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS! And to award themselves more allowances for a longer period!

After this, the Liberal Democrats and Tories on the four district councils spent yet more taxpayers money on a "Stronger Somerset" proposal for two unitary authorities to replace them.

Then all these councils spent even more money, in a battle and competition on which proposal was best. All to try and please dodgy MP and Minister for Local Government Robert Jenrick - who was last year caught up in a corruption scandal relating to property deals and planning permission. Councillors claimed that it would be him making the decision, not residents.

Councillors then used public money to pay PR people to try to sell their stupid ideas, using misleading information, with Stronger Somerset falsely making claims that Professors support their ideas, (we have it in writing that Stronger Somerset never contacted the authors of the aricle - see * below) and using dodgy statistics that do not represent the full facts.

How much money have they wasted on this futile exercise? The public need to know.

The councils could have joined together, or they could have stopped this madness during a National Emergency, but they used public money to argue amongst themselves.

And most importantly, they did not bother to ask you whether they should have started this futile process in the first place. They just went ahead.

In our campaign for a Referendum, Somerset Independents contacted ALL district councillors and county councillors. Some on several occasions.

We spoke at council meetings to ask them to back a Referendum.

We were campaigning for a Referendum very loudly and very consistently.

But the vast majority of Liberal Democrat, Conservative, Labour and Green councillors DID NOT LISTEN!

The vast majority DID NOT EVEN RESPOND TO OUR COMMUNICATIONS! They thought that they knew better than the people of Somerset.

And now, the people have spoken again AGAINST unitary changes. TWICE!

TWO REPRESENTATIVE POLLS OF A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF SOMERSET RESIDENTS SHOW THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF SOMERSET RESIDENTS DO NOT SUPPORT UNITARY CHANGES AND/OR THAT  THEY HAVE NOT EVEN HEARD OF THE PROPOSALS!

An Ipsos Mori poll was conducted and paid for with YOUR money by the Lib Dem and Tory district councillors, and supported by Labour and Green councillors too. 

Another poll was conducted by the Tory councillors on the County Council. It showed that the vast majority of people had not heard of their proposal.

The report on the poll said:

"Three in four Somerset residents (76%) are indifferent to who delivers their local services, as long as these are delivered to a high standard • However, most want more information about the One Somerset proposal (73%) and don’t necessarily trust local Councillors or politicians to make the right decision about the future of Somerset on their behalf. (p4)"

These polls were paid for by taxpayers' money.

All this public money has been spent, during a Global Pandemic and National Crisis!

It could have been better spent on helping businesses to survive, to protect people from Covid-19 and to provide higher morale and hope for the future.

Instead, Lib Dems, Labour, Green or Tory, the same old story.

Spending YOUR money to protect themselves and their parties.

And to these national political parties, Somerset's local communities, Somerset's local people, local businesses, local areas and local families are way down the list of priorities. 

THESE NATIONAL PARTY COUNCILLORS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES WHETHER THEY REPRESENT YOU?

WE KNOW THAT THEY DON'T!

Ask them why they did this, when Somerset residents had already told them that they didn't want it.

Vote them out when the time comes!

Vote for Somerset Independents councillors who listen to you, and act for local residents - not political masters in Westminster. 

And join us in our campaigns to stand up for residents and work with residents.

Standing Up For Somerset Residents

 

* Colin Copus, Emeritus Professor of Local Politics, who supports our campaign for a Referendum, rebuffed the Stronger Somerset PR people's claims. He told us in response to Stronger Somerset attempting to use his paper to justify their proposal:

"‘I, or my co-authors, Steve Leach and Alistair Jones, haven’t been contacted by Stronger Somerset. But to set the record straight, our evidence shows there is no need to merge or create bigger councils in Somerset or anywhere else for that matter. We certainly do not show that new unitary councils – of any size - are necessary but that the two-tier system has strengths and benefits that should not be lost by creating unitaries, of any size’."

COVID-19: Lib Dems Wasting £23 MILLION of Taxpayers Money on "The Arts"

Somerset Lib Dems Wasting YOUR MONEY

 

UPDATED (15/1/21) with links to Southampton Independents work and response from South Somerset District Council to our challenges.

During the Covid-19 crisis, South Somerset District Council has decided to commit £23 MILLION of YOUR money, to an arts project. This is despite being challenged by us, in public, as reported by SomersetLive. They have been forced to respond to our challenge. We have a great deal of experience of projects like this, as can be seen with the "Arts Complex" on the archived Southampton Independents website.

Somerset Independents was formed to stand up for Somerset residents. 

We had to be formed, because the Somerset Liberal Democrats are just like the other national parties - Labour, the Greens and the Conservatives. They put their party first and local residents last. And they misuse public money to do so.

Somerset Independents has exposed the Lib Dems on Mendip District Council for their financial mismanagement and hiding their financial decisions behind closed doors from the public. Ernst and Young are still investigating the Lib Dems there, as described elsewhere on this website.

Somerset Independents listens to residents. We believe, from the comments we have heard, that the vast majority of residents do not support South Somerset District Council guaranteeing the £23 MILLION forecast to be spent on the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil.

So we are doing something about it. 

Somerset Independents does not just SAY that it stands up for residents.

We LISTEN and we ACT.

Our Leader Andrew Pope spoke at the South Somerset District Executive (Cabinet) this week. He and his colleague Denise Wyatt have substantial experience at exposing the misuse of public funds. This includes their previous work in Southampton that exposed the horrifying failure of "Studio 144" or "Arts Complex" (link to various articles here).

What Andrew said at the Executive has been reported by SomersetLive and the County Gazette. And a further response from South Somerset District Council in response to our concerns is now here. Andrew's full speech is below:

Andrew Pope

Andrew Pope Speech To South Somerset District Council 7^th January 2020

"Thank you Councillor Keitch.

Thank you very much.

The Octagon Theatre Development...when I saw this report, reported by the County Gazette, I was quite concerned.

Until 2019, I was a City Councillor in Southampton. And during my time as an Independent councillor there, I worked very hard to expose the failings of Southampton City Council and the tens of millions of pounds of public money which they robbed from other budgets to pay for a project just like this one.

It was interesting, I think it was Councillor Clark on the previous item who mentioned about an Internal Audit report.

I worked to leak that Internal Audit report. But it was too late, because the tens of millions of pounds of public money that could have been spent on basic services, were instead spent on arts.

That project now has been an absolute disaster.

The former Leader of the Council, who lost his seat shortly after we exposed this, was former Councillor Simon Letts. He did not want to answer questions from the local newspaper in response to that internal audit report.

As I say, tens of millions of pounds of public money that could have gone on other things.

This report today asks you to underwrite £23 million. That money will have to be raided from other budgets, if you do not raise the funds. That is exactly what happened with the arts complex in Southampton.

It was a project that was going nowhere, the Council stepped in, underwrote the project and then the Council and the taxpayer ended up footing the bill.

I’m asking you to seriously consider very carefully whether you wish to do this and suggest that you do not do this.

If this project is feasible, it needs to be funded from other sources and not from the taxpayers money.

Thank you very much."

CAMPAIGN: When Will All of Somerset Get Superfast or Even DECENT Broadband?

 

Standing up for residents
and businesses

Somerset Independents is campaigning for better broadband for Somerset residents. Why?

Because our residents and our businesses deserve it. And despite broken promise after broken promise by the County Council and Government, Somerset still suffers from poor broadband in too many areas. Their latest promise in late December, is likely to end in more disappointment.

Never mind superfast broadband*, too many households suffer from not even having decent broadband**!

Figures published by the House of Commons Library prove it. They are based on the data provided by OFCOM, the Regulator for communication.

For example, the figures below show how terrible the lack of decent broadband is in the Constituency of Somerton and Frome, currently represented in Parliament by Conservative MP David Warburton.

According to those figures:

• The average download speed was 42.8 Mbps (Mega bits per second) in Somerton and Frome, just less than 25% slower than for the South West of England as a whole. It is 30% slower than the average download speed for the whole of the UK.
• Superfast broadband was available for only 81.5% of Somerset's premises, lower than 91.9% for the South West and 94.8% for the UK. Put another way, 18.5% of households do not have superfast broadband connectivity.
  
• Just under 10% (9.4%) of premises cannot get decent broadband. This is three times as many as just 3.1% for the South West and five times as bad as for the UK.
  

When the averages are broken down into smaller areas within the Constituency, it is even worse. 

Plotted on a map, you can see vast areas with terrible broadband. About the only area that is OK is the northern part of Frome, an urban area.

Mr Warburton has made statements in Parliament and on his website about his "concern" on the failure to deliver.

But he does not need to look far for who has failed to deliver.

It is his own Conservative Party's failure to deliver broadband in Somerset. They've been in power at the County Council for years.

And it is his own Conservative Party's Government's failure to deliver. They've been in power for a decade, since 2010.

His Party's failures might explain why Mr Warburton appears to have done little about it. 

As noted by the Parliament-watching website, TheyWorkForYou.com, Mr Warburton only sometimes differs from his Party and only occasionally rebels against the Conservative Party. And as also shown there, and as found by our own research, Mr Warburton hardly spoke in Parliament in 2020, with very long gaps of months between appearances. 

Even so, speaking in Parliament is just words. Somerset Independents prefers to see ACTION, not just words from Somerset's elected representatives.

Let's not forget, Mr Warburton is one of several Somerset Tory MPs who tried to defend the indefensible on Free School Meals - his Government's failure to sign up for it - and then his humiliation when they were forced to u-turn.

So he is likely to not provide much in the way of exposure of his Government's, and his County Council's failures.

Leader of Somerset Independents Andrew Pope, says:

"I live in a rural area. My broadband is provided via copper wires that run on telegraph poles running to an exchange miles away. We are at the end of the line and the broadband is only ADSL. I need decent broadband to run my online business from home. And if my business is to expand, I need superfast broadband.

BT Openreach is so bad that when our line was struck by lightning and the shock came into our house, they failed to investigate what happened, or to visit our property to check the safety.

In fact, it was impossible to get them to give any meaningful response to our concerns. We were told to phone India. The call handlers had no idea about our area and they ignored our problem. We even took it the Ombudsman, who were useless.

So we switched provider. But that has not changed the terrible infrastructure that is so out-of-date.

We had a public meeting at our village hall, with Truespeed giving us empty promises. It was only if we signed up, and if all other villages signed up between us and where Truespeed have their cables already installed. We have no idea when, or if, it will be provided by them, by land. Now the County Council have named them as a new partner. But it is likely that they will fail to deliver, as the others before them, did.

So I am supporting the Voneus satellite broadband that is being rolled out in rural areas. The latest application that I am aware of is in Pilton. I have supported their planning application, because I believe that Voneus have tried their utmost to minimise the visual impact, rejecting sites due to genuine concerns from local residents.

The history of the Mendip Hills shows that, if you cannot go under, you have to go over. But specious and fake objections to technology, such as happened with some people and vested interests when the trains were installed through the Hills two centuries ago - cannot stop genuine progress. Populism cannot stop genuine progress for society as a whole.

 

Somerset Fib Dems Fibbing About 5G

But Liberal Democrat councillors in Somerset like Councillor Liz Leyshon and Lib Dem Bath MP Wera Hobhouse have even used pseudo-science to oppose 5G, just like the Conservative Government has with Covid-19, to justify their populist vote grabbing. To object to masts for visual impact reasons is one thing, but to speak at meeting after meeting in a Luddite way to oppose technology to catch votes, is another.

Somerset Independents will be supporting the rollout of technology that helps residents and businesses survive and hopefully thrive."

* Superfast broadband is defined by OFCOM as "The percentage of lines that were capable of receiving download speeds of at least 30 Mbps in May 2020".

** Decent broadband is defined by OFCOMS as "Premises below the Universal Service Obligation - those unable to receive 10 Mbps download speed or 1 Mbps upload speed".