Green Councillors Report

In the previous issue we told you about the changes to local councils. One council doing all services may simplify things down the line and having two layers of council can often cause frustrations (the back and forth about flood responsibility being just one example). However, we continue to have concerns about the potential for chaos in the interim years, whilst this all gets worked out and how that could impact the services that you, as residents, rely on.
It’s also been suggested that it would save money, but there’s little evidence to show this. This year’s budget papers for Charnwood estimated that an eye-watering three million pounds will need to be spent from reserves over the next two years, simply to cover the costs of this reorganisation. That is money that could be being spent on so many good things in our area. Government is insisting councils plough ahead with these changes, even in the face of such costs and many unanswered questions.
New proposals for what the new council/s might look like have emerged and there is little agreement between the County Council and the smaller councils. The County Council want to see one huge council to cover the whole of Leicestershire, whilst the districts and borough councils, are more in favour of two councils, North and South Leicestershire. For now, the initial talks to expand the city boundaries into the county, have been dropped, which we hope stays that way.
In other local council news, we were pleased to see that our efforts to get Charnwood to engage better with parishes and local groups on planning were successful. If there are changes to national planning law, that will affect neighbourhood plans, Charnwood are now required to let them know, so that they stay valid.
We have been doing all we can around flooding, from Charnwood’s side. We know this is a major concern for so many in this area. Sadly, we are still waiting for LCC, the lead flood authority, to publish their report into the floods from January 2024. We hope this can progress quickly. Other local Councils with this responsibility published their reports last year (Leicester City and Nottingham County). Cllrs, residents and councils alike, are relying on this expert analysis of what exactly caused the flooding, so we know what needs to be done to prevent it.
One piece of good news – we were delighted to see that Charnwood are now investigating drainage on new developments and making sure that the companies responsible for looking after them, are keeping them clear and doing the job they are supposed to. However, we know that this is only a small action in terms of helping with flooding, and it is going to take a multi-faceted approach to get real results.
Cllr.laurie.needham@charnwood.gov.uk
Cllr.sandra.woodward@charnwood.gov.uk
Cllr.Chris.O’Neill@charnwood.gov.uk