Who runs Rother was a frequent question as candidates for the District Council elections in Eastern Rother attended a hustings in Winchelsea on Tuesday(May 5) evening – the only such event in the District. Incumbent councillor Paul Osborne and new candidate Sally-Ann Hart represented the Conservative Party; Paul Carey and Nick Warren represented Labour, and Sonia Holmes stood in for LibDem candidate Rachel Hills, who has injured herself. Some 30 members of the public attended.
In their opening introductions, the Labour and LibDem candidates criticised the lack of openness of the District Council to the public and its treatment of the rural areas. Carey felt that Rother was driven by Bexhill, whose influence was disguised by the lack of its own town council. However, the Bexhill-centricity of Rother was disputed by Osborne, who argued that many rural councillors and senior officers lived outside the town.
The theme of who runs Rother was prominent and questions from the floor asked whether Rother was run by its officers and whether there was a culture of “meetings within meetings”. Osborne and Carey, who have both served as Rother councillors, defended officers as being professional and subject to strict legal standards of conduct, although Carey felt that officers had become too close to the entrenched ruling party. Holmes argued that the problem was that officers were too isolated. They needed to be made to come out into the District to face the public.
A different mechanism however was proposed by Hart. She suggested that the public needed to be more proactive in contacting Rother, and saw village plans as a way of influencing the Council. But Carey claimed that there was resistance in Rother to accepting village plans. He noted that the first village to offer a plan to Rother, Sedlescombe, had been rebuffed three times. Rother was defended by Osborne, who stressed that the Council could only accept village plans that were consistent with its Core Strategy as approved by government.
Another key theme at the hustings was parking enforcement. It was explained the hustings had been organised in part to take up a complaint made at a Parish Meeting in Winchelsea in April, at which Rye Harbour residents had asked for action to control parking. Candidates were asked whether they would support a parking enforcement scheme in Rother similar to that in Hastings. All candidates were opposed, although Warren felt the subject needed to be investigated. No candidate offered an alternative.
Another hot topic was planning. It was suggested that Rother had cut back the planning department too far, and that Conservation Areas and archaeology, subjects of particular interest to Winchelsea, had suffered most. The Listed Buildings Officer came in for particular criticism, especially her unwillingness to respond to the public. Warren proposed increases in rates to fund more planning officers, arguing that the per capita increase would be marginal and rate-payers would be willing to pay for a better planning service. But some good news was provided by Osborne, who reported that Rother is interviewing for three new planning officers, including another Listed Buildings Officer.
Also on the subject of local heritage, recent instances of the destruction of archaeology in Winchelsea were highlighted. Candidates were asked to put in place procedures to ensure that planning applications, including approvals under building regulations, were automatically notified to the County Archaeologist, for him to assess the need for archaeological conditions. It appeared that candidates thought this sensible. A slightly depressing finale to this part of the debate though was provided by Osborne’s explanation of the constraints imposed by government on councillors’ participation in the planning process.
The meeting concluded on the subject of affordable housing. There was general agreement from candidates on the need for more. Warren saw parish councils as playing a key role. Osborne would have liked to see the revival of community self-build schemes and bemoaned the time and effort it took to complete projects.
Talking to members of the public after the meeting, it seems that views differed on the quality of answers to questions, but there was general agreement that the hustings had been a useful event and should be repeated for future elections.