CLLR MHB BLOG
Blog 27 Gaza - Do Councils waste money? - a novel way to run a symposium - listening to residents - new arrivals in gardens and hedgerows
Photo: Brian Garman
Our weekly vigil at 5pm on Wednesdays in Barnstaple High Street continued - the news ever more distressing and intolerable. The deliberate starvation and shootings of Palestinians ordered by Israel’s government ought to be the first item on every news bulletin and our own Prime Minister and his ministers should be grilled daily on their appalling failure to impose sanctions on the killing machine Israel has become. Thank you to Kneecap for speaking the truth and thank you to Jonathan Cook for this link: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000
I was elected to North Devon Council (NDC) in May 2023 and received weeks of training. Two years later we are having refresher training. One valuable session I attended was on Licensing & Community Safety. The statement above on licensing taxi and private hire drivers is very well stated. We were also reminded that when it comes to applications for licences to drive taxis / private hire cars you can’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt. I also took part in a very thorough Budget Workshop. Falling levels of funding from central government, with no reduction in local authorities’ responsibilities, spells trouble ahead. I’ve been told a few times by members of the public that ‘councils waste money’. If I hear that again I’ll ask for details - I’m confident that there won’t be any. At NDC the staff and members watch every penny: we don’t even have tea or coffee and biscuits at our meetings. Water only and quite right too.
This symposium at the Burton Art Gallery in Bideford accompanied the striking exhibition there by Emma Stibbon RA. 90 took part. There was a round-table discussion which used a novel form of participation. The chair (the artist Katy Lee) sat at the centre of a round table with experts from various disciplines seated around the circular table. If you wanted to speak you tapped one of them on the shoulder and took their place.
I did that because I wanted to address the first topic - in regard to climate change, do we prioritise Coping, Adapting or Transforming? I argued that we should not choose one but do everything simultaneously. I cited my experience with Extinction Rebellion (XR), whose mass takeover of Central London led to the House of Commons declaring a Climate Emergency on 1 May 2019 - but, as I have often urged my valiant XR colleagues, we need not only to demonstrate to government but to participate in government too. Now that so many local authorities have declared Climate Emergencies we need to help them achieve net zero targets from the inside - as councillors or MPs - activism on the streets and in the debating chambers.
I spent Saturday morning with County Councillor Ed Tyldesley talking to residents in Mount Sandford Road, Landkey. As you can see from the photo above - a footpath leading nowhere - there are serious safety problems for anyone thinking of walking or cycling along this road down to the shops, health centre, pharmacy etc in Newport. Apart from the lack of a footpath/cycleway the speeding epidemic is particularly bad on this road. Many residents don’t dare use the road except in a car. We heard lots of really valuable things during our many doorstep chats and will be using these to continue our campaign for improvements to road safety, especially the much needed footpath/cycleway. Highways have begun to scope out the route, which is great, but we need to keep this project centre stage.
It was sad to say goodbye to the Flag Irises around our pond but now we have Meadowsweet, as above, and the first Purple Loosestrife and Willowherb appearing - the thrilling blossoms of high summer. Thank you for reading.