My speech at Norfolk County Council today during a debate about whether or not the Council should lobby the Government to stop further cuts to local Council funding.
Chairman, I welcome the intentions of this motion and its attempt to stem the cuts to Council funding through a relaxation of removal of the rate support grant.
During the recent children’s centre consultation, I had time and reason to reflect on what my own community in Thetford had lost of the years.
When I was growing up in Thetford, we had a County run youth centre in the town with employed, professional youth workers. All of course now gone. When I was a student, there was a Connexions service offering careers advice, also now gone. When I started work as a Community Development Worker in the town, we had a publicly accessible police station and I worked closely with Police Community Support Officers and we held multi-agency meetings to work towards reducing crime and anti-social behaviour. Now, our police station is not publicly accessible and there are no PCSOs – all 275 were made redundant in Norfolk and we have 177 fewer Police Officers. We had a vibrant adult education service, but the Adul Ed centre at Tanner Street in Thetford was closed and later sold to a private developer. My old pre-school Nursery at Elm Road was turned into a social services base and pupil referral unit – but that too was closed and has sat derelict for many years. More recently, whilst I’ve been a County Councillor, it was the Priorsmead Care Home, built when the estate was built in the 60’s, but closed and the building sold. Not because the demand for care had reduced of course, but budgetary constraints.
When I first started attending my local residents association – there would be a good group of residents, working alongside the Police, the local Housing Association and an officer from the District Council. None now attend – their roles deleted or such worked blocked through time pressures. As a local Councillor I’m pretty much the only person there able to answer any questions so do my best. If only my UKIP District Council colleague for the ward would attend maybe we could share the work, but that’s not to be either.
More recently of course its our children’s centres that are threatened. We’re now looking at taking services away from the very youngest in my community. My District of Breckland is already ranked 300th out of 324 local authorities for poor levels of social mobility. With even fewer support services, one might think Norfolk is aspiring to reach first place.
Recently, whilst delivering leaflets for the children’s centre consultation, I came across a guy with clear mental health issues – with our mental health trust rated inadequate yet again, I made the necessary referral knowing full well it’s unlikely he’ll get the support he needs.
And lastly, Council Tax – one might think that with so fewer services we can all rejoice that we’re paying less at least. A Band D in Thetford has seen a 25% increase in Council Tax over the past 10 years. Our Town Council’s share has increased by 71%! I doubt local people’s wages have increased to such an extent over the same period so people’s ability to pay will have inevitably been compromised, not least because not even the poorest in our communities are exempt from paying all of their Council Tax. Don’t get me started on cuts to welfare, universal credit and support for the disabled through services such as motability and what is going on with our health service.
This motion talks about a cliff-edge being presented in years to come, I would argue that in many areas, and for many services, we’re already there. For many, we Councillors are the front line. I see the end result of such cuts on a daily basis. I see the cumulative impact upon them and the erosion of the very structures that bind our communities together. If we don’t stand up for our residents here in Norfolk, who will?
I want this motion to be as effective as possible, I want it to have the greatest impact possible. I don’t entirely disagree with what is there now, but it could be so much stronger. I ask our Conservative colleagues to go further and to fight with more determination than has been evident thus far.
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