Please allow me to correct and refute some of the statements about Rother District Council reportedly expressed at the last Rye Town Council meeting, especially those of the unnamed councillor said to have “detailed knowledge of the internal workings of the district council”.
I can reply with some feeling because I stood for Rother and was elected in 2019, precisely because I felt areas outside Bexhill and in particular my ward of Southern Rother (Fairlight, Guestling, Icklesham and Pett) had not been treated fairly. In my case the issues were the protection of the cliffs at Fairlight and planning (where the ward had not been represented on the planning committee despite major issues).
Half the population of Rother lives in Bexhill and Bexhill has about half the total number of councillors. There is nothing inherently sinister about it.
Following the 2019 elections an alliance of independent, Lib Dem, Labour and Green councillors took control from the former Conservative administration. Since then great efforts have been made by all in the Alliance to ensure the ancient towns and rural districts have had fair treatment together with Bexhill.
Of the nine cabinet members no fewer than four are from outside Bexhill, including the deputy leader. Three out of four committee chairs are from outside Bexhill, including the planning chair. We have honoured a commitment to create a Bexhill Town Council – something denied by the Conservatives despite strong local support – so local Bexhill matters will be decided by its own councillors and financed from council tax raised in Bexhill. Plans to devolve Bexhill’s lavatories to the town council are well-advanced, part of a Rother-wide (and government policy compliant) plan to devolve assets to town and parish councils. Devolution of assets will free Rother to act strategically across the district as a whole and give decision-making responsibility to local people.
None of this supports the contention that decisions on spending are biased in favour of Bexhill or that there is an administrative mess. On the contrary, the Alliance has been scrupulous in ensuring just treatment and sound finance. We have devised a fair scheme for the distribution of Rother’s share of the community infrastructure levy replacing the chaotic officer-led scheme favoured by the Conservatives. Bexhill has had to forgo desirable but expensive schemes to replace its ageing leisure centre and repair the defective seaside fountains, the latter being a mess left to us by the Conservatives. The bizarre higher management structure we inherited in 2019 has been reformed, and the planning department is now dealing promptly with applications.
The flavour of the Rye News report of the town council discussion about the pool is at variance with the constructive talks which have taken place with Rother and which are reported among the town council meeting papers. It is also at variance with the measured tone of Mayor Andi Rivett’s update of 2 February.
It takes some courage to say this, but users of the Rye pool have been subsided over the years by users of the more profitable Bexhill facility (Freedom Leisure receives no subsidy from Rother).
On finances it is true that reserves are reducing, but that was also an inheritance from the Conservatives. Our position on reserves is about the same or better than the Conservatives’ own 2019 forecast, despite the cost of Covid, and we have a sound financial management strategy. Rother’s finances would be in much better shape, and we would have been able to do so much more, had the Conservatives not frozen the council tax for five years between 2011 and 2016 when modest rises would have been wise. Instead, they relied on one-off central government grants without regard for the future.
Rother’s share of your band D council tax is currently a modest £193.38 per year. Increases are capped by the government so we shall never be able to claw back the extra pounds forfeited by the Conservatives and which would have made such a difference to the services we could provide.
Elsewhere cabinet member Cllr Hazel Timpe will write about the levelling-up grant for the De La Warr Pavilion and for community facilities in the deprived area of Sidley. I expressed my own views last week.
Finally the criticism of your Rother councillors, the Rev Howard Norton (Lib Dem) and Genette Stevens (Con) is unjustified. The meeting agenda did not include an item calling for district councillors’ reports, and the matters for discussion at the meeting were well set-out in appendices to the agenda. The district councillors would have had no right to take part in the discussions.
Please remember district councillors are always available to discuss problems with any member of the public or with the town council. Councillors’ contact details are on the Rother website.
Cllr Andrew Mier (Lib Dem) is district councillor for Southern Rother ward
(the villages of Fairlight, Guestling Icklesham and Pett)
Image Credits: Rye News/Wikipedia/Andrew Mier .
So lovely to hear a clear and reasonable explanation of the situation from someone who WAS in the room.
It is nice to hear from one of the Rother councillors, and I thank Andrew for his contributions. It would, however, be nice to hear from the councillors who represent Rye etc. Their comments seem to be conspicuous by their absence.
I must agree with Clare, it is positive to get some engagement from Cllr Mier, RDC. If only we could get a similar level of detail and engagement from someone with actual responsibility for Rye itself, whether we agree with all of the content or not. One of the main points of the original article in question was the apparent lack of engagement from our own two Rye RDC Cllrs, one Lib Dem, the other Conservative. Cllr Mier’s response above does throw into relief the same point. We suffer from a lack of representation and crucially, visible engagement in Rye from our elected RDC members.
The people of Rye meanwhile have put in the effort including to develop Rye Pool in the first place. I am a member of the pool and between the restricted opening hours, the current tragic closure and my monthly membership fee (no reduction despite the pool closure) I see little evidence of being “subsidised”.
Interesting to hear about Bexhill, but from a Rye perspective, our swimming pool is less about profitability but it’s importance as a community resource to support the health and wellbeing of residents in Rye and it’s surrounding villages. While I appreciate running Rye Pool needs to be cost efficient, we need to safeguard services for local people and the employment of staff within these facilities.
I agree about the importance of the pool as a community resource, but we need a sound and sustainable financial plan.
Some national news today (22 Feb) about a campaign for government aid for pools. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/64725864
Much appreciate the measured response from Cllr Mier about the actual workings of RDC. As an ex councillor for a London Borough I recognise the difficulty of enabling residents to feel informed about the decision making process.
As residents we have a responsibility to keep ourselves informed. That includes questioning ‘ reported’ content. There are official ways to make ourselves familiar with decision making including going to our Cllr. Surgeries.