Independents’ pitch to the area’s voters
GROUP LEADER SETS OUT POLICY PRIORITIES
ACCOUNTABILITY is a key focus for the Independents for North East Lincolnshire group in its council elections campaign.
Local elections will be held on May 2, and 12 wards will each elect one councillor to the local authority. Waltham, West Marsh and Wolds Wards will not be, though will still vote in the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner election. Ahead of polling day, Grimsby Live is hearing from leaders of the councillor groups contesting this year’s elections. Up this time is Cllr Steve Holland, who leads the Independent group.
The group formed after successes last May, and have three councillors. s. Endorsed candidates are standing g in two wards, Freshney and Yarborough.
The group, who are not a party as s such yet, could hold the balance of f power if the Conservatives lose their r majority.
The Independent group’s overall pitch and priorities
“I think the overall pitch is to con- tinue with what we’ve set out to do,” ,” said Cllr Holland.
“What we stood for is to try to stop p the unnecessary building of huge e housing estates on the open countryside, particularly the area known as the Freshney Valley.”
The council’s current Local Plan allocates for potentially 3,800 homes to be built in the area.
“We should be concentrating much more on regenerating the town centre, and bringing empty houses back into use,” Cllr Holland said, rather than building housing estates without thought to the infrastructure that supports them, particularly roads.
“We’re seeing problems right the way wa across North East Lincolnshire Lin with overdevelopment. ve “Scartho Top, for example, pl which has still got another an 800 houses planned p for it and already there’s th traffic chaos.”
The second element of the th independents’ pitch is i a rejection of party politics. p
“We don’t think party politics is a good mix at local government level, frequently putting party interests ahead of residents and we don’t think that’s right.”
Asked what independent councillors’ policy priorities would be, Cllr Holland indicated a continued focus on holding the council to account.
“What we try and highlight is transparency and accountability, that is a real part of our ethos.”
“We want to see improved levels of competence,” he said, before citing Corporation Bridge’s continued closure as an example of the council not achieving this.
“We’re six months on and the council still can’t give us an opening date, and that’s not acceptable,” he said, referencing the bridge’s
We don’t think party politics is a good mix at local government level ...
Cllr Steve Holland
Housing and Transport
Grimsby Live asked about policies on several topics prevalent locally. On housing, Cllr Holland made clear the independents wanted more affordable homes.
The council’s Housing and Economic Needs development report, published in January, was highlighted.“What that shows is the real need for housing is genuine, affordable housing, particularly social housing to rent.
“Before we start building huge houses that local people can’t afford, we need to be addressing local housing needs first and foremost.
“There’s some great work being done by East Marsh United, for example, in looking at renovating houses in the community, and having decent landlords. That’s something the council needs to be actively encouraging and also looking at how to scale it up.” On transport, he reiterated the need for roads to be in place before large housing estates are developed.
“For transport as a whole, what we’re seeing is a lot of traffic congestion, and a lot of that is being caused by overdevelopment. The roads are not just built to cater with the levels of traffic they’re having to cope with.” He gave Scartho and Louth roads as examples. “What we need to be doing before we start building more houses is have a really good look at the road system, and make sure the roads are capable of managing the level of traffic we’re asking them to cope with.”
He also called for a greater borough-wide focus on pedestrian and cycling needs.
“We need people to be walking more. People won’t walk if it’s not safe.” When put to him that his efforts to support residents’ calls for a zebra crossing at St Nicholas Drive was an example of this, he agreed.
At the end of the day, we have to be encouraging residents to look after their area and take pride in where they live.
Cllr Steve Holland
Regeneration - people afraid to go into the town centre
Cllr Holland said regeneration is “quite a subjective term” but cash on big town centre projects would not work without addressing social problems in the most deprived areas around it.
“Life expectancy in places like East Marsh is falling,” he said, as one example. People quite often, actually, are afraid to go into the town centre because there’s a sort of pervasive aggressive atmosphere within the town centre, which still hasn’t been brought under control.” Until it was, he contended, “however much money you throw at it, people are still not going to be there.” He also expressed independents’ opposition to the Freshney Place leisure scheme. It made no sense to spend tens of millions of pounds on a scheme that would involve a cinema and unhealthy fast food outlets. “We’d be better spending that sort of money with regeneration projects that are going to improve people’s health.”
He was also asked about how independent councillors would tackle fly-tipping. “The individual independent councillors, we already do what we can in terms of organising litter picks,” linking closely with community groups. People needed to be educated about the environmental effects of discarding plastic litter.
He added the council needs to do its part with bins in the right place, emptied regularly. “At the end of the day, we have to be encouraging residents to look after their area and take pride in where they live.”