We must keep Peterborough democracy local

In the interview that he gave to this newspaper, Councillor Holdich did say something which concerned me: essentially, he hinted that Peterborough Council may be subsumed or merged with Cambridgeshire County Council in order to save money. I do not see how this is to the advantage of our city. It would essentially fossilise the paralysis in our politics: it has largely been Conservative dominated since 1977. If you don’t like the way Peterborough Council does things at present, imagine a situation in which the authority would be at a further remove and even more immovable.

Furthermore, many of the programmes that the Labour Group has proposed to benefit the city could be scuppered by this change: I have consistently stated that I would like to replicate the success of Preston in having a “local first” procurement policy. It makes a lot more sense to use Peterborough residents’ taxes to procure locally than it does to ship the money out of our city. If we are subsumed into a larger entity, how do we implement this?

We already have experience of how things will work in practice: can anyone honestly say that having a Mayor for both Peterborough and Cambridgeshire has brought significant benefits to our city? Or has it brought additional costs on top of more of the same?

I realise that after the turmoil of the past three plus years, a referendum, two general elections, and yet another local election in the offing, that people are rightly sick of politics.

They don’t want to get another leaflet shoved through the door, they want to carry on with life, and they want a bit of quiet and efficiency. However, we can’t have quiet or efficiency without good governance: we cannot get our roads fixed, we cannot get our police to serve our communities, we cannot improve our schools unless we have a pro-active government to work towards these ends. There is nothing which suggests that by pushing governance up a layer that this can be achieved. Costs may be saved, but at what cost? Peterborough became a unitary authority in 1998 precisely because it needed to be run more effectively, more closely aligned to the interests of those who live here. Have we forgotten?

At the time of writing, it is unclear who will be taking over from Councillor Holdich; Councillor Seaton has announced his intention to stand down. It may be Councillor Fitzgerald will take on the role, unless, of course, the voters choose a different path in May, one which will forbid our collective voice being diminished in a larger whole. If Labour does take control, we will maintain local democracy.