Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils
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Agenda item

In addition to any announcements made at the meeting, please see Paper BC/21/20 attached, detailing events attended by the Chairman.

 

Minutes:

The Chair informed Members that the Leader of the Council, Councillor Ward had pre-recorded his Leader’s Announcements as he was not able to attend the meeting.

 

  Councillor Ward made the following announcements:

 

Good evening, everyone. Unfortunately, I can’t be with you all in person this evening as I have a very bad cold and cough. It is definitely nothing more – I have done two LFTs and one PCR test and all were negative.

 

This is the first of additional council meetings designed to enable members to participate in debates on a range of topics. We are reinstating Cabinet member reports, and we have the first two this month. We are introducing debates on current live issues and topics of interest as an alternative to member briefings, which are not always well attended. This evening we will be discussing the current status of Covid recovery in Babergh, covering business confidence, its lingering impact and ongoing changes to the behaviour of residents. Finally, we will also be having a series of location reports from different parts of the district. There will be a rolling programme running from East to West, and this will start next year.

 

I hope you will value these themes and please feed back any comments or suggestions you may have.

 

Economy Briefing

Last week an all member briefing from the Economic Development team was held. This was excellent and highlighted the huge amount of activity and projects delivered in the district.

 

Our approach to supporting innovation is getting recognition nationally and we are definitely having an impact on stimulating the post-Covid economy and delivering jobs.

 

New Public Realm Team

Yesterday marked the start of our new in-house public realm service. 15 new members of staff arrived at the Stowmarket depot and Cllr Dawson was there to welcome them alongside our officers. I would like to thank our project team for all their hard work over the past 12 months to make this such a success.

 

ERA

As announced at the weekend, the government has agreed to Suffolk’s request to be designated a Covid Enhanced Response Area. We will get extra resources to increase vaccinations and provide other support. Increasing booster vaccinations and the vaccination rate for 12-15 year olds are the main priorities. A walk-in service at Hadleigh church on Saturday was very successful with 2,030 people getting a jab.

 

Belle Vue Engagement

You will all have been aware of the recent exhibitions of plans for Belle Vue park in Sudbury. I want to thank the officers who were present for giving their time, particularly on the Saturday, and to all the councillors who also visited and spoke to many of the public there. Feedback regarding the Churchill development was, as to be expected, mixed – but not totally dominated by those who oppose our plans to regenerate the park. The feedback on our new entrance was, in contrast, overwhelmingly in favour of the plans, praising the design, thoroughness and quality of the visual elements. The major concerns were over access across a busy junction, but we will address this with SCC highways and ensure that safe crossings from the town will be provided. There were some useful suggestions for further improvements and conversations with skate park users were also very informative.

 

I just want to note one particular comment we received that ‘Some of the more vocal groups in the press do not speak for all of Sudbury and Cornard’. We shouldn’t lose sight of that when assessing, particularly, what is said online and the tone that is used by contributors there. Which brings me on to my next item.

 

David Amess

I would like to spend a few minutes reflecting on the tragic murder of Sir David Amess, following five years on from that of Jo Cox, and some of the subsequent commentary regarding the increasing lack of tolerance and coarsening of the political climate that we are experiencing now, primarily resulting from the lawless domain that social media has become. As the Daily Mirror recently commented, there is an ugliness infecting public discourse.

 

This is more than the lazy, destructive cynicism about politics that, arguably, has been growing for a few decades and which is fuelled by entertainers out for a cheap laugh. We are increasingly living in an Orwellian world where facts are regarded as lies and lies are accepted as facts. The anti-vax campaigns are just the latest sinister manifestation of this. We are having to cope with an environment in which politicians are being disbelieved, vilified and abused to an extent where we are almost regarded as being sub-human and therefore threats and attacks can be justified. Female politicians fare even worse with the additional vile misogyny that they receive. This applies to all levels of democracy and councillors up and down the country are experiencing similar abuse to MPs.

 

This is a real threat to representative democracy because those who would wish to stand will increasingly decide that the cost is too great. If there is a lack of candidates, if there is contempt for the system and the system fails, then there will be a vacuum and that vacuum will be filled with something very ugly indeed.

 

Clearly, there is a lot for police and the social media companies to do to stop this and prosecute offenders vigorously. At the moment, they are all failing dismally. However, there is also a role for councillors to play too. We must challenge inappropriate comments from our residents and get them to understand what is and is not acceptable. But councillors at every tier of local government must also be very careful what we say in public, taking particular care about what we say about each other and other authorities, mindful of how careless words can inflame the mob.

 

I won’t say any more and I won’t go into specific events in Babergh which, I am sure, you will realise are at the back or indeed front of my mind. But, please, let’s all make every effort to help our residents engage in robust, lively but mature debate without rancour. And as for those who do not wish for this, well they must be shunned, and we must not give them any support or encouragement.

 

Supporting documents: