Opinion: 'My first council meeting was toxic, unproductive and a complete waste of time'

I’ve spent the last decade working locally in the private sector – i.e. having a “real job” – and never cared much for politics.

That all changed when my patience finally snapped at the state of our town and I decided to stand to try to make Mansfield a better place.

For years, I couldn’t understand why our town was in the state it’s in.

In comparison with other similar-sized market towns up and town the country, Mansfield seemed to be in a worse state than most.

What I couldn’t understand is why nothing was being done to stop the rot and bring about massive and much-needed changes. What was the council doing? Why was nothing changing?

Then on Tuesday, I had the benefit of attending my first ‘full council’ meeting of Mansfield Council.

As I walked out of that meeting a mere 45 minutes after it started, it all made sense.

Scrutiny

Full council meetings happen a few times a year and serve as opportunities for members of the public, and councillors, to publicly question the ruling Labour-controlled council, push important issues, get answers and hopefully focus minds on what needs to be done locally.

In fact, the Labour-controlled council didn’t even want this meeting to go ahead – they intended to cancel it and wait until September for the first meeting after the election in May, i.e. avoid being publicly scrutinised.

That was the first hurdle for the Conservative opposition – to actually force them to hold the meeting in the first place.

We managed to get the meeting to go ahead and submitted a number of advance questions on important issues raised with us by our constituents, i.e. our employers.

These ranged from the lack of working lifts, the lack of public toilets, the further £126,000 being spent on flats in London, travellers’ sites, wastage of council money on expensive IT equipment, unfair parking charges at Mansfield Woodhouse Train Station, and town centre anti-social behaviour.

These, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are all very important issues that matter to the majority of Mansfield residents, and issues that the Council needs to urgently address and take seriously.

I walked into the meeting expecting firm action, commitment and agreement from the Labour Councillors.

“Yes, you are quite right, elderly and disabled residents shouldn’t have to use McDonald’s toilets… they shouldn’t have to struggle to cart shopping up flights of stairs… young mothers shouldn’t have to change their babies in Costa Coffee… we need to stop wasting money in London… those parking charges were grossly unfair and we'll refund the fixed penalty notices to people that were caugh't out....we need to clamp down on anti-social behaviour to improve our town centre….”.

Those are the sorts of answers I expected, together with a plan of action from the council as to how to get things moving.

Alas. No.

It seems I was stupidly naive and far too optimistic.

The councillors responding to our questions all rolled out well-rehearsed and well-scripted stock answers. They knew their lines well:

The council recognises there’s a problem with public toilets, but nothing is going to be done until next year;

The council recognises the lifts at Walkden St car park are unsafe, but new ones won’t be coming until next year;

We are not refunding the unfair fixed penalty notices for people caught out by poor signage at Woodhouse Station Car park – the actual response to my supplementary question was “I can’t see that happening”;

There is no problem with anti-social behaviour, we are already doing enough;

We aren't selling the flats in London, our priority is to the residents we look after;

We need our expensive laptops, phones and IT equipment to do our very important jobs.

The list goes on.

Follow-ups

Only when we asked follow-up questions, and they didn’t have a script to follow, did it become blatantly apparent they had no idea what they were talking about.

When they were challenged or asked a difficult question, they gave some total incoherent waffle, or they hid behind: “I don’t have that information so will have to respond to you in writing".

It was the response to the final supplementary question, about the council wasting money, that best illustrated the utter distain certain councillors hold for opposition members and their constitutents.

We pointed out the vast sums being spent on IT equipment for newly elected councillors.

The response? Nothing more than a Party Political Broadcast for the Labour Party saying how horrible and nasty the Tories are, how we should all be ashamed, and what utter lowlife scum we all are. (I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea – if you’ve not seen the council meeting, you can watch the replay and the full answers to the questions on the council’s Facebook Page).

Behaviour

The lack of answers and action is one thing, but the behaviour of certain councillors is another. I work most days in the magistrates’ court and Crown Court, so I’m used to a certain degree to professionalism, respect and common decency among people who you disagree with.

That's fundamental, yet seems to be a skill that most Labour councillors struggle with.

There was an abundance of chuntering, muttering, quiet mocking and a total lack of common decency towards opposition members who were asking questions.

It was almost as if they didn’t like being open to scrutiny, or being challenged on their failures locally over the past few decades. It was nothing more than unprofessional, churlish and rude. The self-importance and arrogance of some members in the chamber is unbelievable.

In truth, I – and my Conservative colleagues who make up the official opposition on the council – are just trying to do right by the people that elected us and trusted us to represent them.

Against the tide of a national backlash against the Conservative Party, I can’t lose sight of how fortunate I am to have been elected, and in return I want to do right by those who trusted me to represent them.

We all want to hold the council to account, force change, scrutinise decisions, save money, raise important issues on behalf of our residents, but most importantly: fight to improve our town.

Confidence

After Tuesday’s meeting, I am not filled with confidence.

In fact, I can honestly say I am surprised anything gets done locally.

We can’t even open a small memorial garden without knackering the grass up.

Yet when councillors dare to question the ruling authority and raise important issues on behalf of residents, they are met with stock answers, distain and contempt.

I had hoped local party politics could be put aside for the benefit and improvement of Mansfield, but it seems not everyone shares that view.

We’ll see how the land lies in four years, but my very sad prediction is this. With the political makeup as it currently stands at Mansfield Council, nothing is going to change. I did warn people before the election not to elect the same-old-same-old, and I hate to say “I told you so”.