Splitting town in two would impact services, jobs and costs

AT ODDS OVER REQUESTS TO HAVE ITS OWN COUNCIL

TWO councils are at odds over a consultation asking residents of a town whether they wish to be split into two separate council areas. The Conservative Blaby District Council approved a public consultation last week into whether Thorpe Astley, a residential area in the Braunstone Town parish, should have its own council created.

However, the Labour-run Braunstone Town Council, which currently oversees the neighbourhood, has said this will have a hugely detrimental impact on its ability to provide services.

Leader of the town council, Councillor Nick Brown, told the Mercury: “Thorpe Astley is roughly 25 per cent of the population of Braunstone Town.

“The council tax split is around the same proportion, but obviously if you take away 25 per cent of any organisation’s income in one swoop it will have significant impact on the services delivered by the town council.

“Then you’ve the impact on Thorpe Astley. If it was to become separate, it would be a smaller organisation and wouldn’t be able to do anywhere near the amount of things Braunstone Town Council collectively can do. Its ability to employ the range of people, deliver the sorts of services and at the same sort of cost is going to be much more limited.

“What I’m loathe to do is start that speculation [about which services will be cut] but clearly we’re working at the moment on our climate emergency, we do community development work across the town, we would probably have to scale back that.

“We give out community grants to small voluntary groups so that may have to be scaled back. Maintaining the parks at the level we do.

“There’s a whole range of things we do that we may not lose entirely but certainly the ability to deliver them will be scaled back.”

“Fifty per cent [of the people we employ to maintain our parks] work in Thorpe Astley. That cost is shared across the whole parish, that’s going to mean that Thorpe Astley residents are going to have to pay significantly more to keep their parks maintained.”

Councillor Terry Richardson, leader of Blaby District Council, said the decision had not yet been made, it was up to the residents to determine the future of their own town. “This is a consultation,” he said. “There is no proposal to split anything at the moment, it’s a proposal to have a consultation to then look at if it’s something the residents might want.

“What this is about is local democracy. So it’s whether those residents feel their voice is heard enough. This is about giving local democracy to people should they wish to have it. This isn’t forced on people, it’s do they want to have it.

“If Braunstone Town Council is comfortable it is providing everything the residents want, that will come through in the consultation.

“So my question to them would be ‘if you don’t think there’s a problem and everyone is happy with Braunstone Town, what have you got to worry about?’” Coun Richardson added that when the local Conservative group, which is separate from the district council, did canvassing

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Thorpe Astley earlier in the year, residents mentioned they were interested in having their own council.

He said: “It’s a comment that residents raised to us about why do we have to be part of Braunstone Town?

“So, we put out a leaflet as the Conservative Association saying ‘what are your views?’

“At the back end of the summer, we had people chasing after us in the streets saying ‘please give us our own identity.’”

However, Coun Brown said this is the first he had heard of any wish to split the council: “The town council has not heard a peep, not a dicky bird from any residents wanting to raise this.

“We’ve got forums like our citizens advice panel which allows any residents of Braunstone Town to come along to this meeting, to raise issues and have a say.

“Nobody has ever come along to us and said ‘we want a separate parish for Thorpe Astley.’

“There is a mechanism for residents, if they want to create a separate parish and that is you get 7.5 per cent of the electorate of the parish to sign a petition. No such petition has been created or received.

“It’s just outrageous that one political group that doesn’t represent Braunstone Town is going to be voting for a resolution for effectively breaking up a parish council without any real evidence of any consent to do so from the residents.”

Blaby District Council said it has followed all the correct procedures in launching the review, which it says is expected every 10 to 15 years. It added that a petition is only one way for this type of review to come about, such matters can also be considered at the discretion of a council.

A decision would need to be made before the next elections in 2023 as the change would only be able to be implemented at the time of an election. The public consultation is expected to be launched in early January.

There is no proposal to split anything at the moment, it’s a proposal to have a consultation Coun Terry Richardson, right