Independents withdraw from Heyhouses Election update

The election period is now well under way, Keith, Craig and myself have been out and about knocking on doors and listening to residents concerns. We have already reported issues with empty properties, litter and poor road surfaces. many of the issues that fall under the responsibility of Fylde Council should be addressed within 7 days. We will keep an eye on it.

Today we learnt that the Independent Candidate placed in Heyhouses by Leader of Fylde's Opposition group (Cllr Hayhurst) has withdrawn his candidature for the Ward and decided to chance his arm in Park Ward instead! This leaves Labour and Lib Dems challenging for the three seats in the Ward.

We have been interested to hear your views whilst out and about. Canvassing has also enabled us to explain the real facts behind the Cabinet system, sand collection and some other inaccurately reported issues in the local media. The common comment from you has been 'now that makes sense, why don't the papers report the real facts?' unfortunately this is beyond our control, yet we hope that the regular newsletters and now this blog will help keep you up to date.

We have also been keeping an eye on the policies and arguments being put forward by our opponents. The Lib Dems seem to be pushing the skewed argument about Cabinet Governance in Fylde and how they will change it for the better!! a few points that you need to be aware of really.
1. The Conservatives already have opposition Councillors chairing committees, Development Control committee, Community Outlook and Planning Policy Scrutiny forums. So their claim that they will give opposition members a role, is exactly what we already do!
2. Lib Dems and Labour want Regional Government and Unitary Authorities. Conservatives opposed both in the recent Government white Paper on local Government reorganisation. The reason for mentioning this is, all Unitary Authorities exceed 80,000 residents within the local Authority Boundary, Blackpool for example has 130,000 residents. The Local Government Act 2000 states that any council with over 80k residents, must operate under the cabinet system! therefore, the Lib Dems and Labour support this structure!!!
3. As already mentioned once a Council reaches the 80,000 residents mark then it has to move to cabinet. For Independents and Lib Dems to say they would scrap the system is short sighted and potentially short lived. New housing policies have indicated that over 12,500 homes will need to be built on the Fylde Coast Region in the next few years. Fylde currently fluctuates between 75 & 76,ooo people within the Borough. If these housing numbers are imposed by Government, then we will be very close to the 80k mark. This again would mean that the Council would have to move to the Cabinet.

Privately many long standing opposition councillors have agreed that the Cabinet is the best way forward, with many of the most vociferous ones against it recently in the papers having actually been a member of the Executive Committee the predecessor of the Cabinet for a year!!! I think, heaven forbid, if the Independents and Lib Dems formed a new controlling coalition after May 3rd, that they would not deliver on their promise and would keep a Cabinet. Based on the feedback from on our canvass, I think that another public consultation would deliver a vote in favour of progress and vote to stay with the cabinet system.

Any thoughts?