Political View: Stormy end to a memorable summer
“I am confident many of us will recall a time when the regularity of roadside drain flushing and gully cleaning was more in evidence.”
After enjoying a memorable summer of long hot sunny days, alfresco dining and pub garden drinking, all came literally crashing down with the storms and flooding which followed and regretfully stayed with us for the bank holiday weekend, writes Conservative Group deputy leader Steve Allen.
This, from recall, is a very similar experience to the end of the summer heatwave of 1976, which many of us long enough in the tooth will remember.
This time as well as the shock of the deluge, we also had to deal with flash flooding on many roads around the city, and in some cases seeing shops and properties taking in the rainfall.
Peterborough City Council issued one of their now famous ‘myth buster’ statements, assuring residents that the flooding was not the result of gulleys and drains not being flushed out and de-silted on a regular basis. Well, I guess we need to take the information at face value; however, I am confident many of us will recall a time when the regularity of roadside drain flushing and gully cleaning was more in evidence.
Hopefully lessons will be learned and acted upon, indicating why for whatever the reason, pedestrians, shop owners and drivers had to deal with the challenges of flooded roads, footpaths and properties, and businesses incurred the cost burden of the necessary lean ups.
A continuing subject of these Viewpoint articles is of course the pending Local Government Reorganisation, which both Cllr Howard and I have touched on over the past few weeks.
This being a particularly contentious subject for our city, as Peterborough, along with West Sussex, were the only two local authorities to see a decision delayed on which Unitary council option the Government has agreed to support.
The Government decided 14 areas on 16th July, leaving us with a wait until mid-September to learn of our fate, this delay was frustratingly without any further evidence being required! Even if the September date is adhered to, the delay will mean added pressure for candidate selection and the campaigning required, impacting in particular the first-time candidates striving to get a foot hold with electors.
If the September decision is delayed for whatever reason this will adversely impact on the whole process, as a decision would be delayed until Parliament returns after the conference recess – taking the date into mid-October!
The Government chose the May 2027 election timetable, and notwithstanding the lack of consensus with the options chosen by the various Cambridgeshire authorities, to have ourselves at the back of the queue for a final decision sees us seriously disadvantaged in respect of the political and constitutional process.
And another thing…….the proposed ward Councillor allocations! Option D was not the Conservative group choice. We sensibly chose Option A which would generate higher savings and a shorter payback time, but to pile on the agony we now have well founded concerns regarding the proposed ward modelling to facilitate Option D; which sees the number of councillors representing the Peterborough area reduced from 60 to 45, with a broader concern that most wards would experience truncated representation with Councillors reduced from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1.
However just four wards will see the Councillor numbers retained at three – and surprise surprise, these include the Labour strongholds of Central, and East - the ward represented by the Labour leader of the council!
Additionally, these Wards have voter numbers well below the proposed electoral average and little in the way of pending housing development, so there is not even a well-argued reason to support the decision. Clearly a constitutional deficit is in play!