Rossendale Free Press

Barnes: Bus station politics didn’t lose me county seat

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ROSSENDALE’S Borough Council leader Alyson Barnes told the Free Press she does not believe local political issues were the deciding factor in the election which saw all Valley Labour county council seats lost to the Tories.

Councillor Barnes, who lost her Rossendale North seat - now redrawn as the MidRossend­ale division - by eight votes, said that criticism of the local council’s handling of issues such as the Empty Homes scheme and Rawtenstal­l bus station ‘played a part’ but were overridden by national issues ahead of next month’s general election.

She said: “I am not regretful for pushing things like the bus station and frankly that is why I am there – it’s always been about improving the borough. I am not looking at it and thinking that’s what’s lost me the election.

“People are being misinforme­d around a lot of issues because of people’s political agenda. Our plan from the start was to re-engage our town centres and bring investment to Rossendale - and I think that Rawtenstal­l is now at the tipping point for that but sometimes people miss the big picture.

“If you look at changes across the county, many seats that were considered to be safer seats than the Rossendale seats were lost by hundreds of votes. I think we did pretty well considerin­g the mood in the county.”

Coun Barnes, who is also standing as Labour’s Rossendale parliament­ary candidate against incumbent Conservati­ve MP Jake Berry, added: “Some of the messages around the general election were quite simply feeding into our campaign. If the general election had not been announced the result could have been different

“I think it will be a very difficult election for Labour but I do think there are some real issues that need to be talked about that are being obscured by Brexit and immigratio­n, but I do think the Labour party are attempting to talk about these issues.”

‘DISAPPOINT­MENT at Low Turnout’ - read the Scribbler column on p8.

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l Alyson Barnes

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