Why Don’t We Vote? The Local Politics Reality Check

Sussex & Surrey Soapbox – SPECIAL: Local Elections Roundtable, Featuring: 

Cllr Richard Biggs (Conservative) - Leader of Reigate and Banstead BC, Councillor for Horley West and Sidlow.

James Tidy (Reform UK), Vice Chairman of Reform UK, Crawley.

Cllr Abigail Chapman-Miller (Labour) - Parish Councillor & sits on East Surrey Executive Committee.

Cllr Mark Smith (Independent) - Councillor in Redhill and sit on Reigate & Banstead BC.

Cllr Bob Lanzer (Conservative) - West Sussex County Council Councillor and cabinet member for Public Health and Wellbeing, Cllr Crawley BC.

Hosts: Tony Williams, Clive Hilton and thank you to Jacq Inwood for production assistance.

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Only 1 in 3 people vote in local elections… yet the outcomes shape our everyday life — from the state of the roads and high streets, to the cost of your housing and even how quickly you can see a GP.

So why do so many people feel disconnected from local politics?

In this special episode, recorded in Copthorne ahead of polling day on 7 May, we bring together voices from across the political spectrum — Conservative, Labour, Reform UK and an Independent councillor — to move beyond slogans and confront what residents across Sussex and Surrey are actually saying.

We put the real, unfiltered comments from local Facebook groups to the panel and challenge them to respond to the issues people care about most — and the answers aren’t always comfortable. Tony and Clive help turn up the heat to ensure a BS, word-salad free answer!

From housing pressures and crumbling infrastructure to immigration, council tax and the growing toxicity of online debate, this is a frank, grounded conversation about trade-offs, accountability and whether local leaders are truly listening AND serving the community.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your vote across Sussex & Surrey really makes a difference — this episode is for you.

Please share with others and we would love to hear 👉 What one change would improve your town most?

Key Topics:

• 90-second pitches from Conservative, Labour and Reform on priorities and misconceptions 
• Raw resident feedback 'what ONE thing need fixing in this town': potholes, roads, housing, drugs, lack of leadership, councils/councillors, litter, high street decline and immigration (well over 50 responses).
• Housing crisis: supply vs affordability, social housing and rising rents 
• Infrastructure lagging behind development: roads, GPs, schools and transport 
• Local government shake-up: unitary authorities, devolution and democratic accountability 
• Party politics vs grassroots councils: should local decisions be less political? 
• Social care pressures, stretched budgets and the reality behind council tax rises 
• Potholes and road maintenance: funding, quality and long-term fixes 
• Immigration and asylum: hotel use, processing delays and policy tensions 
• Civility in politics: social media toxicity and its impact on public service 
• Gatwick expansion: economic opportunity vs local impact

Please click on 'Send a text' above & join our Facebook group to share your perspective and suggestions for future topics - Thank you for your interest! Clive.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Turnout Is Low

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Welcome to the Sussex and Surrey Soapbox. Real viewpoints, real opinions, and a balanced conversation on the community issues that matter.

SPEAKER_07 0:09

Welcome along to the Sussex and Surrey soapbox in a very sunny, well, sun's gone down I mean, the Metropolis Copthorne. And welcome to everyone here around the table. Big thank you to everyone here for making the effort to come together today. Just to set the scene, we've got local elections coming up. Now there was, you know, it wasn't due to be local elections, they're going to be postponed, but that's another episode we did in the past, but they are on. And it's uh happening on the 7th of May. And it's surprising, only one in three residents go to the polling station when it comes to a local election. And the purpose of this is I think there's a lot of frustration in communities about do politicians serve the public? Do they understand the issues? I thought, what a great way to lean into this. We've got a nice mixture here this evening. We'll do the introductions in just a moment. I think there's going to be two main rules. One is no BS, uh no word salads, uh, and let's just challenge what's said and relate it to those that are listening to this at home. Uh and the second is a bit of a fair airtime, so no one's gonna hog the mic. We'll pass it around so everyone gets a fair chance. First, uh just to welcome Tony Williams, who knows all about um well, better than I do when it comes to politics.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

There's a oops, there's a big oversell if ever I heard it. I'm here. And uh yeah, looking forward to this one because they say there are local elections coming up, and it's gonna be an interesting uh well, an interesting insight into how local politics is working as opposed to what we see of national politics. Going to be interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_07 1:45

Right, let's get straight into it. Let's find out who's with us today. Shall we start and go around this way?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Hello, my name is James Tidey, and I'm the Vice Chairman of Reform UK in Crawley.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Hi, uh, I'm Councillor Abigail Chapman Miller. I'm a Labour Parish Councillor and sit on the East Larry Executive Committee.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Hi, I'm Richard Biggs. I'm a councillor in Hawley and I'm leader of Ryegate and Bansted Borough Council.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Hello, my name is Mark Smith, and I am a councillor in uh Red Hill, and I sit on Rygay and Banstead Borough Council.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Hello, uh, my name's Bob Lanza. I am Conservative uh West Sussex County Councillor and Cabinet Member for Public Health and Wellbeing. I'm also a councillor on Crawley Borough Council.

SPEAKER_07 2:30

And it's interesting because as we were getting to know each other walking in, there is a lot of experience around this table. So uh getting into the topics, reflecting on what's worked in the past, what hasn't worked, and really bringing it to life. I think there's a real opportunity, isn't there, too?

SPEAKER_05 2:45

Yeah, I was listening there, and there's a mind-boggling array of uh various different councils and uh positions that you all hold.

SPEAKER_07 2:53

So I'm looking forward to sort of getting your views in a while. So let's get into the 90-second pitches.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

First up, Bob. Uh good evening, everyone. So I'm I'm speaking as a Conservative member of West Sussex County Council. Uh, but hopefully my comments apply to other county councils as well. So we're a local authority that um provides over 300 services, but they fall under certain key headings like adult services, children's social um services, highways and transport, libraries, fire and rescue and the like. But everything we deliver depends upon sound finance. The most recent fair funding review from government will deprive us of about 30 million pounds over the next three years. However, despite that, in February of this year, we set a balanced budget, which means that we set a budget where our income matches our planned expenditure. And better than that, we didn't have to draw on reserves. Now we've seen publicity around a number of councils having to approach the government for aid assistance to help balance their budgets. I'm pleased that we didn't have to do that. And we increased our net revenue budget by£35 million to£885 million, and within that, I think it was about£21 million extra went to adult services and£11 to children's. As we prepare for local government reorganisation, and this applies to Surrey as much as Sussex, it's really important to have an experienced team to bring all of the services together under the new single-tier local councils. And I believe that's a really important priority, whether or not you agree with it. In terms of one of our most misunderstood policies, it's a personal view, but I think it relates to climate change. There are some people who think we don't go far enough or take it seriously enough, and there are others who think we take it too far to the detriment of the economy. I like to think that in reality we're in the middle of that.

SPEAKER_07 4:54

Thank you very much. So that's Bob, very much a conservative view, just to set the scene there. Thank you, Bob. Who is next for the 90-second pitch? And then one thing, one thing that people often misunderstand about your party. Who's going next? Abigail or James?

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Abigail will go first.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

So tonight I'm here representing Labour, so I'm going to speak quickly about the national picture, and that is that we inherited an economy that wasn't working, and our public services were stretched beyond belief. What we've started to do is turn that economy round and focus on growth and rebuild our public services. But I want to speak more so about what's happening in Surrey and Sussex and what I see on a day-to-day picture, which is I see families skipping meals and relying on food banks, I see workers and their bills ever rising, missing out on their money, and young people, including myself, priced out of the communities that we were born into. So that's not just difficult, it's wrong. So what we want to do, especially here locally, is focus on bringing down that cost of living, focus on putting in affordable housing for young people and local families, look at fixing transport so it's accessible and affordable. Um for me, I can get to Amsterdam cheaper than I can in London in the morning. And also focus on investing directly into our communities, our high streets, and our charities. There's lots more to do, uh, but Labour is making sure that it happens. In terms of what maybe is misunderstood about us, some people would argue a lot of things, but I would argue that we've done a lot in the last 20 months. Um, there's a lot more to do, and that we really are focusing on the cost of living for absolutely everybody.

SPEAKER_07 6:45

Thank you very much, Abigail, very much a Labour view. Let's move swiftly on. We are going to get into this in more detail in a moment, but it's good to just get these sound bites to start off with. James.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

People should vote reform for a new kind of politics. People have had enough of politicians looking after themselves. They voted to cancel your right to vote, both Labour and the Conservatives. And the reason we got the right to vote back was because reform took the Labour Party to court. So we shouldn't vote in the people who tried to take our votes away in the first place. Reform councils have delivered the lowest average council tax increase of all the councils while saving hundreds of millions of pounds. Reform councils, uh reform groups are made up of grassroots people who aren't interested in being in politics. They just want a different kind of politics, then they want an improved area. Um, one thing that's misunderstood is I think our indefinite leads to remain policy, where people think just if you're if you're on indefinite leads to remain, you're automatically out of the country. That's not the case. It's simply an old policy that needs revamping.

SPEAKER_07 7:49

Very good. You have got some spare time there, James. You didn't lose your full 90 seconds, but that is that is fine. Any reflections, Tony, from you listening to that?

What Residents Actually Complain About

SPEAKER_05 7:57

Uh yeah, um the the biggest uh thing that I took took from this is there's uh seems to be an enormous link or people trying to link national politics with what happens locally. Um, certainly in that last uh effort, there was very little about what was being offered to the local people. There were lots and lots of swings at your opposition for what they were gonna do or what they weren't gonna do and what, but nothing about what reform were actually going to do. So for me, that was the biggest takeaway from all of that. The others had uh local content in there, which is what you want to see. Before I go any further, I've gotta I've gotta mention this one thing because it was such an eye-opener for me today. We we had we had um a Facebook page out today uh asking for people's comments about what they would like to see from uh local politics. And I have to say there's four pages of it here. You're very welcome to take a look at it at some time, but I can tell you now it was the most depressing thing I've seen. Not one of you mentioned anything that was in here apart from I think potholes, I think, which is um a separation of the politics from the people or the politicians from the people, and it's a big question, I think. Really are we seeing a separation? Are the people going in one direction? Um, Abigail mentioned about housing and said about affordable housing. I think what you actually meant was uh social housing, because they're two different things. Affordable housing is the normal housing minus about 10%, but uh social housing is a lot more accessible to a lot of people who can't afford to buy a house, and that's the idea, and we're not seeing enough of that either. So, yeah, there are there are a couple of points there for both of you that uh really probably need a bit of addressing.

SPEAKER_07 9:52

And this is partly why we wanted to have this conversation to really bring it to life. So those people listening at home, probably a little bit frustrated when we say only one in three go to the polling station. Is it because there's apathy and they don't believe in all of this? I wonder. Some of the comments, just to summarise, Potholes Roads, we mentioned humanity, humanity seems to have disappeared in in society and in the community. So it isn't all on politics, it's just what people are noticing that they need fixed. How we fix humanity, I don't know. Uh, but also immigration, hotels back to paying customers, and also a little bit more of a sense of pride in community. Recreational drugs was brought up. Um interesting point on that.

SPEAKER_05 10:34

Uh interesting point on that. That uh, I mean the Green Party are not here at the moment, but they actually uh suggesting that uh legalization of all drugs could be. Here, the people are talking about drugs in exactly the opposite direction, saying they want it cracked down. Uh, literally, pardon the panel on that, but that they want to see action taken, and not a lot of action is taken on uh slowing down drugs.

Housing Pressure And Missing Infrastructure

SPEAKER_07 10:58

Uh this is the scathing one, I'm afraid. I hate to say this, but leadership. And when they talk about leadership, it says here the council and the councillors get rid of the council needs a reset. Someone likened it to switching it off and turning it back on again. He's an utter reset, uh, I think someone said. Litter, high street decline, too many vape shops. We've been talking about that on the podcast in previous episodes, and lack of housing. That is the sentiment that we got from various Facebook group pages across Sussex and Surrey. Um, so let's just open up. Any immediate thoughts? Busy people busy writing and putting hands up. Let's go to Bob first. You had your hand up first.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Thank you for doing that research into topics of public concern. And I would say, as a party, we do engage in survey canvassing to pick up these issues as well. I mean, the housing issue is is is very much a real one. And I would say that um local government reorganisation should assist with that because it gives local authorities on a larger footprint the ability to think more strategically about housing provision. In terms of the point you made about drugs, absolutely um we should be cracking down on that. There should be no question of legalizing class A drugs. We have a health and care system that is under considerable stress, considerable demand. Why on earth would we want to uh make it worse? Leadership, I think that's an important point. But that's what your elected councillors are there to provide, whether they be independent or members of political parties. And if you don't have elect if you don't have elected councillors, you run the risk of your local authorities, your councils becoming officer-led. And when you've got a council providing over 300 services, that creates what you call a democratic deficit. There's no accountability.

SPEAKER_07 12:45

That was a conservative view from Bob. Uh Abigail, Labour.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah, so thank you for doing that. And I'd really like to look through it. Not just from a party perspective, but also somebody who works in the community. I want to come back at what you said about housing. I actually mean both with affordable housing. I think we need a lot of social housing, but we also need affordable rent. So for context, I work in senior management. My partner works in the police, and we currently rent a one bed in Dorman's Land for£1.3,000 a month. We want to upsize, we can't. Um, we don't necessarily need a social house, we can afford to rent, but just not at that price. So I think we need to see both and better rent controls, and I do think that actually comes in by building more stock. Um, and then just on the sort of your drugs policy uh with the greens, I obviously really don't agree with it. I'm 30 years old, I've I've grown up actually around a lot of substances, it was a very high issue in the Oxford area and seeing too many young people die of it. Um I do believe, however, that we need to stop stigmatising drug drug use and supporting those who want to get clean to get clean.

SPEAKER_05 14:03

One thing about all of that, well, you because you both mentioned housing and Mark, it might be a good thing to come from you actually about housing. I don't I don't know what your thoughts are on housing, but we were talking about affordable housing and uh reasonably priced housing. But the one thing that's forgotten, and it's a big thing with local authorities, they're having to uh allow lots of house building because of a political judgment further up the line that says that each authority has got to build so many houses. The one thing that everybody's forgetting, and it's half the reason why we're in half the state we're in now, is that nobody's thought about the infrastructure. The roads are still the same though as they were 30 years ago. So uh I don't get I don't get this thing about oh, we've got to build houses, but there's not a lot of thought behind it.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Um I I'm not too sure about that. I think uh I I do actually think that national government has got to step in at some point if it's not being dealt with on a local level. If we aren't pushing enough um social and affordable housing through, and I'm more about the social housing in my ward, there are lots of people who are living in um social um housing, and they're already really struggling, you know. Our food bank usage is going up. Um we're not the richest end of uh Surrey, so um there's a lot of people struggling, and there's a there's a big exodus of um people leaving the area because they can't afford to stay in the place that they grew up, and I think that's really quite frankly, it's unexcusable. We've we've got to a point where it's been uh kicked into the long grass so much that the national government have quite rightly had to step in to fix a problem that was actually created like in the 70s or the 80s with the privatization of the housing system. Well, it was Mr.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Prescott that said years ago, I'm going to concrete over the southeast of England, and that is exactly what is happening now. It's not happening quick enough. My problem wasn't about the housing because there are bit they are being built. The houses are being built. My problem is the infrastructure is not being built, which is roads, which is new doctors, uh, all these sorts of things that should be there that aren't there. Hence, we have longer waiting lists for seeing doctors. Uh, we wait longer on the roads now, they're in a worse ten times worse state than they ever were. Nothing is happening on that front. And that's my point. Why are local politicians not pushing for that?

SPEAKER_02 16:35

So I think um schools that are local schools, anyway, uh in Raiga and Bansid, they're actually they're actually um reducing their class sizes because there are too many spaces for them to fill. Well, but you're saying that you want more infrastructure. So the roads are in a state, unfortunately, from a borough council point of view, that is a county council issue. I mean, I drive on all the roads, I drive all over the country uh for work, and um yeah, they're a nightmare. I used to ride motorbikes all the time. I I stopped doing that because it's not really safe enough. So that's a direct effect on on how I travel and and make a living. Um, doctor surgeries. I regularly talk to um the my own doctor surgery a lot, and um, I ask them if there's anything I can do in my own small way to try and help. And they say they've got plenty of space, whether that's uh how that is, I'm not entirely sure.

SPEAKER_05 17:31

You live in a privileged area, I think. Can I just ask the same question of um of uh James over here? Because you've been a bit bit quiet. What have uh reform got to add on all of this with housing and uh infrastructure?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Well you're asking quite a national question.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

No, it's local because the local politicians need to push it.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, absolutely, but you've got you've got to understand that that's that the that issue comes nationally. So it's all it's all a supply and demand thing. It absolutely does. Um so it's it's all a supply and demand thing. If you have too much demand, then you have to increase the supply. But absolutely, we need to build, but we need to build build intelligently. We can't just build over floodplains and then get surprised when it floods. Um and you're you're absolutely right. Um near where I am in Forgewood, we have so many residents saying, where are our shops? Where are our doctor surgery? Because they're being being given planning permission, and so and then there's no requirement that they deliver the housing and the doctor surgery in any time frame. So we need to bring in time frames so they have to deliver the services for local residents.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

Yeah, yeah. There's a few things, I think, here. So firstly, we're talking about numbers of houses. As local authorities, we should be talking about creating places. We're not just about delivering houses. We've got to create a place. And that includes the infrastructure, that includes the schools, that includes the the National Health Service, providing doctors. The problem is they're not tied together. So as a local authority, we can say in planning that we want a health space there, but if the NH says NHS says they're not going to put one there, we can't do any more about it apart from provide them with that land. So it needs to be a lot more joined up. And some of the funding, so the funding for the roads in Surrey, which are really heavily used, is exactly the same sort of funding that they get in Devon, which is hardly used at all. So we need to change the funding for the use of the road because that's what actually causes the damage. The number of lorries, day in, day out, particularly in an area like us with Gatwick, with the M25, we've got huge amounts of traffic. So we really need to understand that we need to create place as much as we need to build boxes. And of course, residents, existing residents, will be against housing going in their area, particularly with the greenbelt.

SPEAKER_07 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

And obviously, this covers right out to Oxted. Tandric, 92.8% greenbelt. And what the authorities are saying at the moment from the government, when the developer goes in to look at a site, it's classing it as greybelt and it's going through at the planning inspector. And what's happening actually is we're losing control of making those decisions locally, and we're not joined up enough with the other agencies to actually make it happen and create place.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

So are you saying, as a council, then you're actually losing um accountability for certain things that it's been sort of re centralised back upwards? Massively.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

Three rivers got a three rivers got a letter. They're trying to put their local plan through, they're working it with their authority, with their residents, and they got a letter through fairly recently from the ministry telling them seven sites that they have to include in their local plan. That didn't come from the residents, that's straight out of MHCLG telling Three Rivers they've got to put that in their plan. So we are losing the ability to create place and listen to residents.

SPEAKER_07 21:17

And and that creating place has come up on a previous episode where where I think people are up for housing development if everything else goes lock, stock, and barrel with it. So, for example, if we look at East Grinted, the loss of water, or generally the shortage of water, host pipe ban only got lifted a couple of weeks ago. Where's the water coming from? I mean, just simply like that, where's the water coming from for these new new homes? And you're right, more places.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Tunbridge and Melling, Tunbridge and Melling have just they're building houses and the water supply isn't there for them. They haven't got enough.

Unitary Councils And Local Control

SPEAKER_07 21:50

So that is worrying, and the infrastructure, the doctors, the education. We'll come back to that in a moment. Uh I'm picking up that we seem to think that these unitary authorities are the answer to simplify it like. Local and county. Is that right? I mean, let's just do a quick hand before we before we pick a little fight here. Unitary authorities, hands up if we think it's gonna help. Can I clarify?

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Rather than just put a hand up, I think it will make things simpler for residents because they'll have one point of call. One point of case. There's nothing worse than a resident ringing up to complain about a pothole. He gets told. Yeah, totally. Especially with the potholes that absolutely absolutely. So I think that will make things simpler. But the size and the limited number of counsellors that will be helping residents within their wards, there's only 72 in the whole of East Surrey, 600,000 people being with with councillors only having 72 councillors to look after a huge area.

SPEAKER_05 22:50

Can I ask just one question?

SPEAKER_07 22:53

Just quickly, because the the unitary authorities, if we had a red, green, and and you know, a red button and a green button to go for unit unitary authorities or not, which one would be who would press the green button to go for it and who would press the red button?

SPEAKER_04 23:07

So Bob, Conservative, Labour, James I would have to have devolution and and a mayoral authority as part of that making the unitary. If we could have the mayoral authority and the delete devolution of funding, then I would definitely go for unitary.

SPEAKER_07 23:25

I I'm I'm just a bit sceptical. Are we rearranging the deck chairs and actually things don't have to be? What do you think about these unitary authorities? Because this is partly the reason why elections were going to be postponed, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, I mean I I I what I fear is that we're going to end up with less democracy and not more. I think representation of the of like the everyone sitting around this table from uh from a local to a national level is fundamentally important to how the country operates and and you know and our I suppose our sense of place and being uh as people in residents in in the United Kingdom. So um you know, stripping out entire uh levels of democracy where you know I walk around my ward and I know a lot of people, they recognise me and we can have chats, you know. I go to the shops and I'll have a chat with you know the guy down the road. Um my fear uh and apprehension about it is that um I think we're gonna go to two, isn't it, in two Surrey's in Surrey?

SPEAKER_07 24:32

Yeah, or in the East and West, Sussex is less clear.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Um so I think we go down to two, and so you're going from a s scenario now where you've essentially you've got four councillors, four people who are representing a a relatively small amount, um, small amount of people, uh, down to two that are going to represent the same amount of people. And I think it's actually going to the danger is we're going to be stripping out levels of democracy in their counterpart.

Do Parties Belong In Local Politics

SPEAKER_07 24:58

And I think it's it's a good thing we get to have our vote on the 7th of May. The only reason of bringing up unitary authorities is and people listening at home are probably not going to really care too much about unitary authorities. We're going to get back to the local issues, which we're going to do. Reason for bringing it up, though, is that was the cause for delaying people's voting right until at least a year, probably longer by hearing this. There's a lot to still be worked out with Sussex. Uh East and West Surrey is closer to it. Let's get back on topic, Tony. Local issues. Sorry, I deviated there.

SPEAKER_05 25:29

Well, we were talking, we were talking housing. It was one of the things uh that came up briefly on here, not too much. Uh the other things were drugs and stuff. But getting back to very quickly to what we were talking about there, accountability. Um, you guys are all representing national parties, except for one. And uh, well, at the level we're talking about here, with the sorts of things we're talking about, most of it doesn't require party politics, does it?

SPEAKER_03 25:59

I think it has less of a role, not least because your town and parish councils have um much more limited powers than district councils, borough councils, and and county councils. People can stand under party labels if they wish to, but the range of services that a town or parish council can provide is quite limited. I'll just come back to the point that's made earlier. If we look at Sussex overall, then there's a good number of town councils to provide that local representation between unitary councils and the people, and more are coming along. I think we can anticipate a Crawley Town Council and an equivalent in Horsham as well. And I would advocate for having a certain we haven't got a parish council or a town council, some kind of community forum between uh the unitary local authority and the people. Otherwise, I think you create a kind of democratic deficit.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

Abigail, what what what say you on the other side of the coin?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah, well, I'm I'm coming from a standpoint where I am a Labour councillor in a majority independent uh parish council and actually even district council, and this is my personal view, it is a lot easier to work with other parties than it is the independents. And I say that from a perspective of if I am working with our county councillor in the area who's conservative, I kind of know where he stands, what he was going to represent, and what he wants to work on. When you go into a group of independents, and this is speaking hyper-locally, they all have very different points of view, and getting to a resolution is never actually that easy. Whereas when I'm with other Labour councillors or where I'm speaking to Conservatives, we all have our personal point of view, but there is a party policy that we are often following, and I think that's a lot easier for councillors, but I think it's a lot easier for residents.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

So for you, it's quite an important thing to keep the political colours right the way down.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

In a way, yes. I I think even down to residents. I know residents who will contact me because I am Labour, and I know residents who will contact uh conservative because they're conservative, and actually sometimes we even signposts to each other because we can help each other better.

SPEAKER_05 28:17

The impression you get from listening to what people are are wanting, party politics is not one of them. Yeah, no, they've all got they've all got their individual thoughts, and it shouldn't be beyond the wit and wisdom of local councils to work these things out and say we need to forget the colour of our politics for the moment and we need to concentrate on doing this one thing that the people actually want.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

And personally, I'd love to see that happen. I just haven't seen it happen in real life. So it's not that I want party politics at local level, it's the fact of, in my own personal experience, I haven't seen it work without it.

Social Care Budgets And Council Tax

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Uh Richard. Yeah, I'm slightly different view to Abigail there because I I genuinely think that town and parish council should be apolitical. I think they're working at a really local level, they should all work together to deliver for the residents, and that's where town and parish council should sit, in my personal view. I think when you get to boroughs and counties, I think despite what residents say, there is an element of national politics that influences their vote. And that may be that they stay away, and that's why we're down to one in three voting, because they don't like what's happening in politics nationally, and they disengage from politics completely. But I think when you get to those levels and the work and the and the money that has to be spent, which is residents' money that we're spending all the way through, it has to be guided by a policy that they're comfortable with, and often that aligns with a political party. So those different policies and how they spend the money will be aligned to a national type of view and policy. So, but certainly town and parish, I'd like to see them all apolitical.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

Now I know at county level, um, one of the things that is really important to a lot of people is social care. And of course, the budgets for social care are at county level. Um, not enough money, I do believe, but that's a that's a a national thing. How do you answer the the social care issue to uh local people? Well, I don't think they actually understand quite how that works because you've got NHS on one side and you've got county council on the other.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Yeah, and and I think it it's really important, as I mentioned earlier, about play uh creating place. These stakeholders have got to work together to make those things happen. So a lot of the work that's done by the county social care, by boroughs and districts on their community work saves the NHS money because it's health prevent it's prevention of disease and and more uh difficult uh illnesses to deal with. And if we can prevent those, then we're saving money. So if we save that money, we'd like to see some of it come back from the NHS working together with the councils. And I think as we go into unitaries, for me, the one opportunity we will have, and in Surrey, we'll do transition first and then transformation, because you can't transform in one hit, and it will take time five, seven, even ten years on some services to make sure they're safe and legal. But I think it's a huge opportunity to look at those and maybe find better ways of delivering and working with partners. And once we start doing that, I think services will improve. People will get better value for money, which is what they want. They want high-quality services and they don't want their council tax increased every year.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

Yeah, I was gonna say on the subject of council tax, and this is for all of you, really. Uh, we've just seen council tax rises for whatever reason and that. But if we're going from three authorities down to two, are we gonna see a cut in our uh our council tax? I can definitely answer that.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Um okay, um, this is Bob again, right? So um I'm not gonna uh uh promise some kind of cut, it's gonna depend on the circumstances. What will happen, I believe, very firmly, is that um services will become more financially sustainable. So if we look at uh Sussex as a whole, no, let's look at West Sussex actually, as it's my my patch. We've got seven district and borough councils and a county council, which would disappear by April 2028. Saving how much? I haven't got a figure on that yet, but I do have an important political comment. There's only one way to avoid savings in that scenario, and that's to have the political leadership which tells people we don't want to make them. Otherwise, they're pretty much there's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there. The savings are there to be had, the public expect them. And for my part, if I'm part of it, I'd I'd want to be heavily involved in delivering those savings. And it's particularly important for adult and children's social care, very high spending services to put them on a more sustainable footing. So, in that sense, even if um local government reorganisation, the unitary authorities were wasn't in the 2024 manifesto explicitly, I think it can deliver those benefits.

Why Change Feels So Hard

SPEAKER_07 33:42

And and the thing I'm liking about this conversation is I get it, right? It sounds really logical, very sense, you know, a lot of common sense. For people at home, I wonder if they've still got faith that things are really going to get better. Because it does seem one in three, yes, it might be the national politics, but is it also partly because they don't believe their vote is going to make any difference? I mean, in your heart, I mean, you you have all put lots of time and energy over many years into this. Do you believe, in your heart of hearts, that these topics that we've gone through that people have said today, today, that list, do you really believe we can make a difference locally to these things, albeit unitary authorities or otherwise? Do you do you really what are the real obstacles getting in the way to really make this happen? Any thoughts, Mark?

SPEAKER_02 34:32

So I uh I'll give you a really short um description of what got made me uh put my name forward to represent my community. Uh it's basically it was over COVID, and I was watching the carnage that was happening nationally with our national leaders. Um and I it I I found it baffling. I work in the entertainment industry, my industry was um, you know, put in a big box, actually quite a small box, and put in a cupboard. And it generates a lot for the economy. I know a lot of my friends were really struggling, I was struggling. And um I was a member of the Labour Party, and I was also uh uh and I'm also a um uh big union guy, so I'm not big in the unions, I've just been in a union for forever. Um and uh I kind of felt that I wanted to make a bit of a difference to what was happening, um what was happening in in my world and and you know, literally within a couple of streets. And um I put myself forward because I didn't feel that I was being represented and all of the people that I knew that I hung out with weren't being represented because it it was and has been for a very long time. Rike and Bansad has been uh very conservative heavy, and it's it's there's there there wasn't a Labour uh councillor for I think about 17 or 18 years, something like that. Um, and so eventually I won. And I think I became a councillor, I was elected by people to become a councillor.

SPEAKER_07 36:07

This was when you were Labour.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

This was when I was Labour. Um, because uh I was honest on the doorstep and um I kind of shot from the hip and I spoke my mind. Uh and the Labour Party, like the Conservative Party and and the Reform Party, uh the Greens, they've all got some good ideas, uh, but they've all got uh uh other ideas that I don't necessarily agree with. And I think when you get to a point, um and I will get to my point because I'm thinking as I'm speaking, um I think you you you have to at some point you've got to start standing up for what you believe in. And if you can sell your idea and your principle on the doorstep, and that's the most important thing that matters, and that's what's that's what gets people out to vote. What I didn't like, um and which I I I don't agree with, is this uh going out and knocking on doors six weeks before an election. You have to be part of the community, you've got to be knocking on doors, not just all of the time, every weekend.

SPEAKER_07 37:06

And just cut to so you were Labour. Yeah. Why why did you why did you become independent?

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Um a number of reasons. Um mainly I feel the Labour Party left me, so I didn't leave the Labour Party, um, which is a shame. I know um there's there's a lot of very polite way. It wasn't me, it was you, you know. Well, you know, it's it's it's a thing. So um there are there are there are lots of lots of reasons, and um we gave it a year um and things didn't improve. We spoke to a lot of our residents that that I was representing, uh that I represent, and um, you know, kind of discussed it with them. And on the doorstep, still going on the doorstep and having those conversations in the run-up.

SPEAKER_07 37:47

So I get it, you feel passionate, but what is getting in the way of getting things done for the locals? So when we see on Facebook scrolling through those depressing points, as Tony mentioned, Bob.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Well, um thank you. And um interesting comments there. I think um there's a lot of process, there's a lot of bureaucracy in local government and the NHS, who of course is a key partner of local government, as as we've mentioned. So if we can cut down on the process and make services more accessible uh to the people, because access to services is sometimes inhibited by the complexity of the system. Some tasks do take an inordinately long time to achieve. For example, planning matters, and I'll I'll come back to that later. I think there's another opportunity to do that. And I think that's that's that's really off-putting. And also the there's there's the finance as as well sometimes. The some aspects of council services, the inflation for those services goes up higher more rapidly than the headline inflation for, say, food and other items that form part of the consumer uh price index. But I think we we look detached because of the we need we need a we need a simpler system, which again I think the these reforms we discussed on local government reorganization uh will will provide for us.

Potholes Funding Traffic And Fix Quality

SPEAKER_07 39:10

I mean it definitely helped with process, boiling that down, simplicity, you know, decision making. But when it comes to decision making, has common sense left? Because, you know, when I think back to an episode we did recently on potholes with Henry Smith and others who and and he owned, I mean, he was running West Sussex County Council, doing potholes. And it was it was the quality of the fixes today. So have we got short-termism when it comes to thinking about do we fill it with you know, a fix and a pothole that needs refixing a week later? I mean, where where are we going wrong with some common sense type decisions?

SPEAKER_03 39:48

Well, we we have revised our approach in in re in recent years, and we we used to have a a kind of slap uh slap approach, a temporary fix.

SPEAKER_07 39:55

I mean, all road services are a lot of those around up the all road services are temporary.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

I mean, let's be let's be clear about that. You can't get away from the more temporary in the UK or in Holland tree. There is there is there is um uh a better approach. You know, we we use a much more thorough approach generally when the volumes are not too high. But I'm gonna I've got to say to you, I want to say something about volumes because February 2025, I hope my figures are right, roughly. I think it's about um 2,500, 2,600 potholes reported in West Sussex. This February it was 7,000. And we and we all know why, don't we?

SPEAKER_05 40:27

You know, the the weather and all the and I'm not gonna hang on, you can blame the weather all you want, but the fact is that there's not enough money spent on road maintenance period. With the as I mentioned earlier, the money, the monies that councillors are having to spend on things like social care take money away from other things, so you've got less money to throw at these things, and basically, under maintenance of the roads in the first place would be the start point of the stuff.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

I I I'm gonna focus on money um again from a West Sussex perspective. So over the last um five years we'd spent about 274 million um in terms of the the revenue budget in in um maintaining the highways. That's not just potholes, it's other defects. But 151 million of that was the county council's own money from West Sussex residents. So that's a really substantial proportion. Only the balance came from the Department for Transport. So to your point, the there is underfunding from central government.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Just to add on the potholes, I mean, this is also linked to planning, is as I said earlier, we're building on floodplains. And so when the roads are getting waterlogged, which they are seemingly months of the year now, that's going to ingress into the road. And then it is like we've said earlier with with the traffic we have on our roads. We have bigger cars, we have electric cars, um, everything's bigger, everything's heavier. So uh naturally you will see more and more potholes. But yeah, absolutely, it's not taken seriously enough. And reform councils, like Kent Council, has has really tried to get on top of that because it's costing people so much money to repair their cars. And every time they go to the council to ask, can I have this money back for this wheel that has been damaged? They always seem to say no.

Immigration Versus Asylum And ILR

SPEAKER_07 42:13

So potholes, uh, while we got James talking. So potholes, I think, was number three. When we did a poll, potholes come up at number three. Number two was cost of living. But in at number one was immigration and James reform. What's your view on immigration and particularly as you were saying earlier when you did your pitch around indefinite leave to remain, how that's misunderstood. Now's your chance to clarify.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

So indefinite leave to remain is is it's been used as an umbrella term for a lot of people who've come to this country. Um, some of these people perhaps shouldn't be in this country, some of them should. So based on what?

SPEAKER_07 42:48

Um I mean, if they've got indefinite leave to remain, I know quite a few people from Europe.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:53

Um and some of them are considering buying a UK parcel because they've they've got the right to buy a UK. A lot of people are doing that thinking that if if getting to power, they may need to leave. Do they need to worry?

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Um well, if you've come here from the EU and you've done it all legally, then most likely not. Um I I don't know the specifics from the top of my head, but the point is we're just getting rid of that broad term that nobody really seems to understand. Um because nobody seems to understand how you qualify from definite leave to remain because it it's such a broad church of people. We just want a cleaner system where we understand should you win this country or shouldn't you? But it certainly doesn't mean that everybody on Indefinite Leaves Remain will have to leave the country.

SPEAKER_07 43:33

And on a previous episode, I think people use the words immigration and asylum seeker interchangeably, and they're very different as we know. Uh I think overall we want better control of our borders and immigration and asylum seekers to be treated fairly, not necessarily in hotels. Let's have a quick let's have a quick because this was one that came up. Uh and some of this is national politics. I'm sorry, Tony. I can feel we want to get back to that. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just hands up. Have we got a problem? With the hotels. It's a home office decided thing. Do we have a problem? That's unanimous around everyone here is saying yes, we do have a problem. Anyone got a solution? How do we fix it?

SPEAKER_05 44:10

Well, I'm gonna say one thing before we go any further because the immigration thing can be split into two. One is the EU immigration that you've been talking about, and you've been dancing around what most people are actually objecting to, which is those from further afield with um well, should we say darkened skin? That's the only way I can put it that uh a lot of people feel uncomfortable with, and the problem of the boats coming in with uh people on them, um, what we're doing is putting them either into hotels or somewhere else and letting them get on with it and some go disappearing. Should we, this is the question for for all of you, really, should we, with people coming in via these methods, be kept in some form of uh secure environment until their case is heard?

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Okay, so just to go back to the the thing, I mean uh this there's the uh question about skin colour, they might be your views, but they're certainly not.

SPEAKER_05 45:10

Not my views, I'm not putting my views about that.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

What I'm saying is I'm only joking, what I'm saying is um what people have an issue with is if you have some group of people from a certain country moving into an area and that area moves, uh loses its identity. We saw this before with EU immigration, where people were uh taking issue of the fact that people were coming over from Poland and Eastern European countries and changing the fabric of their of their community. So it's nothing to do with specific ethnicities. Um it it doesn't matter where they're from. We it's simple, it's simply we can't just have unlimited people coming in. We complain about the NHS and we only had what 700 more houses with millions of people more um sorry, 700 more beds with millions of people coming into the country. We haven't got the houses. Um should should people who uh the question about should people who enter legally be held securely, yes. Because you've committed a crime?

SPEAKER_07 46:02

So held securely till they're herd versus being deported immediately? Oh well, you if you can't deport them immediately, I mean So your preference would be to deport them, they land on the shores if you're if you come over if you come over on a boat, yes. Even if they're a legitimate asylum seeker?

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Well we you should have you should open up routes if you want asylum seekers, and I don't think the route should be come on a boat through France. I think there are probably better ways of doing that.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

Can I ask the Labour approach on that, Abigail?

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Yeah, um I mean I put my hand up to say that we've got a problem with hotels, but it may differ to others around the room. Um I don't think it's sufficient for people in the area, and I don't think it's sufficient for people living in the hotels. It's just not solving any issues. Do I have the exact answer no? Um I do think we need to really open up safe legal routes to asylum seekers, which hasn't existed in the way that we'd like to see. Um, but I would also argue that there is an issue with skin colour, and I'm going to speak from my own personal experience. So I was one of the community leaders that led on the integration of Ukrainian refugees during the homes to Ukraine scheme. Tandridge was one of the highest areas in the country taking Ukrainian refugees, and I saw a whole community come together to ensure that these individuals were safely homed in in other people's houses, had spaces in schools, could access jobs, and actually had a lot of the restrictions around working taken away from them straight away, so they could go straight into employment, mental health support, down to sort of churches putting their um their papers into Ukrainian. And I also work with an organization in Red Hill who sees um housing underage, so under at the age of 18, refugees who have come here through routes that we wouldn't like them to. And some of these individuals are even refused to be seen by private dentists, will not see them, refuse to see them, the racism that they experience on the streets, in healthcare, and for me that is purely a racial issue because if you've got somebody coming from a war-torn country who's Muslim and somebody who's coming from a war-torn uh country who's Christian and white, and one's being treated preferentially, then there's a race issue, even if you don't realise it. Um, I do think Shabana Mahmood is doing a lot to try and toughen up a lot of the restrictions. I don't have the personal answer around boats. I would say that, in my opinion, we didn't have this issue as much as we have now before Brexit. I think that's really contributed to just allowing these boats to come over. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with putting them in uh prison-like camps either. I think I haven't gone to Calais, but I've seen enough to see that that's not the answer either.

SPEAKER_07 48:59

And and this is key to differentiate when we say immigration, which is the parent, um, there are asylum seekers as different. And I think in in Facebook and in society, there's a lot of friction that's coming to and this is what led to us starting this podcast is to have dialogue, bring conversation, try and find some common ground rather than just finding differences with each other. Um, just coming back to that, we'll we'll do James next to respond to Abigail and then over to Richard because I know Richard's got to go soon, and it'd be good to get your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Okay, I'll be very be very quick just in terms of you're saying that people are welcoming of the Ukrainians where you are, but perhaps not of other people. We we're currently recording this in Copthorne, um, just outside St John's Church, which also has put its service into Farsi for the people in the hotel. And I I I think if you speak to people locally, they're very, very, very unhappy that they've got a big hotel with a lot of illegal immigrants in it, but they're very welcoming and they're doing what they can. You know, if these people come in and they want to go into church, they're very happy to do them and they're very much invited to be part of the community. Um, it's just simply people didn't want all these people coming in. But now they're here, people are trying to do what they can to make it as as welcoming as possible.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Yeah, a couple of things on immigration. I think we've got immigration and we've got asylum seekers. Two separate things. We need immigration. A country thrives on immigration. We have a lot of services that we need people to come in and actually work within particular industries, and that's really important. I think one of the issues is allowing a number of dependents to come with the people that are coming for a job. So often when we got up to sort of 900,000, 700,000 were dependents not coming to work, not coming to pay tax, part of their family, and I understand that, but really and truly that puts a huge strain on our services, and maybe we need to look at that slightly different with dependents coming with them. And then with asylum seekers coming over whether it's both, we need those safe and legal routes, and we need to process really quickly. And and the key is being able to process, preferably outside of our borders, so that that can be dealt with, and people aren't taking that very risky journey across the road.

SPEAKER_07 51:26

And also, do we feel the benefit system is a bit of a honeypot? Because a lot of the argument we hear when we talk to people is that people are coming to the UK because of the benefits, we give them the hotel, give them a mobile phone, and and it's and now we're paying them to leave, right? I think recently it's been said that you know£40,000 for a family of four,£10,000 each. I mean, where do we sit with the benefits and the money that we're ploughing into these people that are coming to our shores, I guess, is the question.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

If we deal with the problem quickly and efficiently and outside, that won't put a strain on the system in the same way it does now, because if they're here for months and months and months and actually don't have a right for asylum, then we've you know we're a caring community, we're we we are a caring country, and we can't not look after these people, so we must do that. But if we process quicker, that strain on the benefit system would would disappear.

Hotels Safe Routes And Faster Decisions

SPEAKER_07 52:27

And this is the conservative, this is the conservative view. This is my view. Yeah, your personal view. Yes. Okay. Uh we're gonna come to Mark in a moment to answer this as well because you're you're you're pulling a slight face and that you might disagree with Richard. I'm not sure. But Richard, I know you've got to go in the moment. Just before you go, any voters listening to this, any local people, just in 60 seconds, why should they bother going to the polling station on the 7th of May?

SPEAKER_04 52:51

I think, I mean, I was never for postponing elections. I think elections are the most important piece of democracy that anybody can take part on in this country. And I would urge everybody to go and put a cross on the paper. For whoever they believe in, that's fine. But please, please make the effort, go out and vote, because that is your democratic right. And if the people you put in place don't do, at least you can say, I put you there for that, and you can change it the next time as well. So you have that democratic right, which lots of people over the world do not have, and and I think it's massively important that you actually take that right, go out, apply for a postal vote, or get out there to the polling station. It takes two seconds to pop in, put your cross on the bit of paper, and you can come out and think, I have done my bit for democracy, and I've exercised my democratic right. And that's the most important thing for me.

SPEAKER_07 54:01

That's a brilliant call to action. I know in putting together this group tonight, it's been tough. There are some people sitting in positions of power that would rather go and have a photo taken and go and be busy doing it rather than be here. So thank you, Richard Biggs, for being here. I know you've got to go, but we're gonna carry on with the conversation. Mark, let's get back to the um what Richard was just saying there about immigration.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

I wouldn't necessarily say it's it's what Richard was saying. I mean, I I I I I I'm a bit of an open book. I don't uh I don't think that I think that anyone who's coming to um to our shores to ask us for help uh should definitely not be locked up in an internment camp. I think that that is just so absolutely outrageous. I I can't even describe how I feel about that. Um I I don't the the the main problem is is over the last 10, 15 odd years, we've been shutting down various well mainly the Conservative government shut down a lot of safe and legal routes to for people to come in. And there's been uh over I'm I'm 50 this year, and over my short time on this spinning ball of rock, I've uh I've seen various groups of people being um isolated and vilified to try and achieve whatever political aim it is, and it's mainly it's about power and influence and all that sort of rubbish. Uh it was single mums um in the 80s and 90s, uh getting the uh uh free housing whilst the housing was being sold off uh to the uh generation that could afford to get uh housing uh and get mortgages, uh, and had final salary pensions, which is also uh, you know, uh a little bit of a thing. Um then it moved on to um the people from Eastern Europe coming over here, stealing our jobs, filling up the hospitals, doing whatever. Um, then of course we had the austerity years, and it's uh the nurses and the doctors and all the people that hold the fabric of our society together that uh were being vilified because they wanted a pay rise. And you know, all of these things, there it's all just wrong, it's all twisted. And now, unfortunately, we do have um the the current government um who you know have spent quite a little bit, quite a lot of time and effort trying to swing the dial against those that are um sick and disabled, and um, you know, trying to cut the benefit bill. And you know, uh, I think I I was reading the other day 60% of universal uh universal credit claimants are actually in work. So, you know, you've you've got your national picture affecting your your local picture, um, and that's why people aren't going out to vote. But absolutely no way we need to speed up the processing of people who claim asylum and who have come to us for help. And let's not forget, it was the Conservative government that pretty much stopped the processing of asylum claims uh for a number of years, I think. It was for quite a quite a long time. Um, so you know, speed those things up and then um things will start to get a little bit better, and let's all just you know care for our fellow person.

Where The Money Goes Business Rates

SPEAKER_05 57:31

Yeah, um some good points made in there um that kind of illustrate the the problems that local government are gonna have because of what's going on at a national level. There's lots and lots of publicity about what's going on, uh lots of uh news and noise being made about immigration and various other things, but it does mean that the money and the will to actually improve local services isn't necessarily there. And it makes you guys who are local councillors, it makes your job that much more difficult. Would I be right in saying that?

SPEAKER_02 58:07

Well, I'll I'll come back at you on that because um people say there isn't enough money, but there is. There's plenty of money. There's loads and loads of councils. How do you know that? Well, there's loads of money floating around the system. We're we're we're I think we're the fifth or the sixth richest company uh country on the planet. So what what you need to ask yourself is where is the money going? So there's always been enough money to keep everything going. There was enough money to um sell off the housing stock, there was enough money to sell off um the water and the travel infrastructure and the electricity companies. So, where has all that money gone? That's where you need to ask yourself. These companies that are um employing lots and lots of people, but all those people, a lot of those people are having to claim benefits because they're not being paid enough money to live and have a good and high enough quality of life, or even be able to afford to shop in the shop that they might be working in. You know, how is that right? That's not right.

SPEAKER_05 59:08

You're actually telling me now, then, that the the problems of lack of funding at a local level is down to the la the will of the national government.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

I would say a lot of it is. Um I think it it the the problems with funding on a local level uh range across the entire system. And it's and it's uh I think the national government um business rates. I remember I sit on the overview and scrutiny panel, and business rates is a big thing, and I was quite surprised to find that uh as a collecting authority, we uh Rike and Bancy, we don't actually get as we've got no control over the business rates, really, to speak of, and we don't actually get that much of a percentage of the amount of money that comes in because a lot of it is taken by county and national, most of the bulk of it's taken by national, I think. I don't know if you've got any idea, Bob, about the the actual numbers, but sorry, I was I suggest that everyone goes off and educate themselves and read and research about what's happening with business rates.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:09

Well, if somebody who's had a business, I can tell you now that businesses uh have to pay council, uh have to pay this tax, and it is a tax, yeah. It goes via the district or whatever council it is straight on to the government who then reallocate money. The businesses themselves get absolutely no benefit from paying council tax, they don't even get a bin collection. Uh so uh that's one of the things that needs reform, but that's not a local government issue at the moment, is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Well, sorry, go on. Yeah, um it's it's Bob again. Well, it it it can be, and it and it should be a local government issue to help our business community. It should. And certainly certainly we do that in West Sussex. We have an economic uh strategy, Crawley Borough Council, even though my party doesn't control it, um, is pretty business friendly and undertakes a lot of a lot of initiatives, for example, on the Manor Royal uh business district to improve its attractiveness for investment. And the county council contributes to that as well. And in fact, since the disabandment of the local enterprise partnerships, there is a statutory role for county councils uh to have an economic strategy. So businesses do get something uh for council tax and and and for business rates, but uh it's also right to say that the bulk of it does go back to um central government, not much is changed, uh is retained by uh borough or district councils. But to me, economic growth is of fundamental importance and supporting businesses because uh that's what um attracts money into the county, new investment, the ability to build to build homes and inf infrastructure for people. So economic growth should be a priority for local government to help with.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:53

Well, thrive thriving uh thriving community relies on essentially a good business sector. And if we're talking about business rates, it's nothing short of just being an outrageous tax on businesses. It is outrageous, I have to say, as someone who used to have a business and found them they're just well, there's just no other word to describe it other than disgraceful because the businesses didn't get a return on that money. All it was doing was sucking money out of the community. There must be a better way, surely, and it will be a good thing if some local councillors started to actually try and reformulate something that actually uh if businesses have to pay a tax like that, that it actually benefits the local community and the businesses themselves rather than going straight off to central government for it to go into the national park.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

Well, the discount on anything. Well, a proportion of it does does stay with local government and it's not the local government services. So yeah.

Gatwick Expansion Trade Offs

SPEAKER_07 1:02:52

And we're getting lots of ideas here for future episodes as well. I know we've got about five minutes left, but before we're covering a lot of topics here. We've done immigration, cost of living, housing, we've talked about businesses. Um, just quickly, here's one that did come up that we've got to mention Gatwick expansion. Yeah, we've got to quickly touch upon this because last year uh the government granted planning uh consent for a second runway. It's a£2.2 billion project to move a runway 12 metres north so the two runways can run in parallel. Hands up, just quickly, let's just do a quick sweep state. Are we in favour of this? Hands up, are we generally there is a bit of a mixed opinion. Okay, on it. Let let let's start with James on this then. GARAK expansion.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

Yeah, unfortunately, I live in the um south part of the safeguarding zone. Um, so I'm very familiar with the noise and it's it's it's not great. Um, but it is a huge party economy in Crawley and locally, and we do need it. Um it will allow the UK as a whole to benefit from it because we can now have more long haul flights, meaning more people can fly in. Maybe they're going from America to Johannesburg, and they might stop in the UK, have some meetings in London, and that's what's been so powerful with Heathrow. And if we can add that with Gaelic as well, it'll benefit London, it'll benefit the whole of the UK as well as the local area.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:14

Bob, you're shaking your head.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:17

Well, I you you called it a second runway to begin with. It isn't. It it's the relocation of the emergency or standby runway so it can be used for some departures. I mean that's and it's actually a really creative proposal because previous proposals for Gatwick expansion have involved going out of its outside of its footprint in a really, really big way, as recently as 2003, by the way. So they've got a really creative bunch of people who lead at Gatwick. So this is far better. And also it's meant to be. So you feel it's a good solution, I guess. I think it's it's better than others, and it is important clearly for uh economic growth and the generation. And the generation, the generation of business rates to uh earlier earlier discussion. Also importantly, it's enabled us in Crawley uh to successfully advocate uh for the um release of some of the safeguarded land that that was due for the Southern Runway.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:12

It felt like a good compromise based on the previous option. But the surprise is 2.2 billion. I mean, that's a lot of potholes, right? I mean you think about the length of that runway, 2.2 billion.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:23

I think we use it more creatively than just on that.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:27

Well, I don't know. We should we should let the locals decide how to uh how to do that. Well they need to vote on it, don't they? Yeah, exactly. Comes back to the voting point. So we've got a couple of minutes left, and then we'll do some wrapping up points.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:39

I want to ask one question of Abigail. I've just handed you the list of the things that uh there were about 50 of them there, 50 different comments. Yeah. I just wanted to you've had a look through it. I don't need you to sort of uh give me individual cases there, but what did you think? Because my first initial impression of that was how depressing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Yeah, could I just club? What was the exact sort of question?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:02

So the question was in various Facebook groups across Sussex and sorry, we asked, What one thing would you change about this town? And so it wasn't even talking about politics, and it's interesting how quickly it got to get rid of the councillors, we don't want a council, we want this to matter. And yeah. So from a Labour perspective, Abigail.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

I I think Labour, but also a personal perspective. I think we're we're living in a really divided, toxic time. And you know, I'm not going to read out some of these comments, but some of these comments are absolutely horrendous. We've lost pure humanity in our society. And I think it's one of those things, and I come from a background, I'm Labour. My granddad will be voting for Farage, has been Farage's biggest fan since I can remember, you know, before he was even on the news. I come from a fairly right-wing family, but at the end of the day, I can go and sit with my grandad or my dad or my cousin, and we get on and we love each other because politics and our our views are less about who we are. They it's more about what we've got in common. And I think we've we forget that. Whatever party you vote for, or whatever you believe, whether you believe in stopping every single boat, or whether you believe in open borders or legalizing drugs or cracking down on it. At the end of the we are always talking about people, and those people need to be spoken with with dignity. And where there are issues, we need to deal with them practically and in a way that we can take accountability, not just cause hate. And I'm not actually going to put this at any party's blame.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:48

Um, I think social media is probably a good place to blame, and I would agree with COVID the the shift where people have got used to not meeting face to face, and that's why this roundtable discussion, actually seeing each other face to face, having that conversation. Uh James.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

Yeah, I mean, uh we've seen a horrific amount of it uh personally in full reform. Um last week, uh or this week actually, um, one of our uh lovely ladies on the committee was uh sent an email out to a tenant and she was told an invoice and she was told to shove the invoice up her homophobic, racist, reform voting C word. Um we've had I I I can put photos of me up in the gazebo in town, or I'll get photos of Charlie Kirk being killed. I recently had somebody saying um be careful spreading this bile. You saw what hands of the Tories in 1984. We had a friend of the Labour councillor come up to us and say that we should be killed. Um and it's uh I'm I'm I don't I'm not blaming you at all, but the on the Labour Party in Crawley, they're accusing other parties of making it more unpleasant um without any any reason to back it up. And it's been absolutely horrific. So you feel it's getting too hostile in the actual political environment.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

Um I I agree, and um almost every English council is a member of the local government association, and they have a programme which I very much support called civility in in public life. We had a principle operating this evening called disagree without being disagreeable, and I agree with that, um, strangely enough, but I'll put it a different way. Um when you have political debate, you should uh try and play the ball, not the person. And I think that's really quite an important principle. But um when you watch on um certain social media channels, if you watch some council chambers uh around the country, some of the scenes they have to be seen to be believed, you know, and it it puts people off. And when we do uh talk with with voters, a lot of a lot of them do say to us, for goodness sake, stop being so personal and uh uh attacking each other. And I think we've been pretty good at that.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:02

And focus on the residents and the local issues and Leicester politics and the banter. Mark, quick quick point from you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:08

Um so I I I I agree. I think um politics from local to national has uh become a performance art, and we need to stop embracing performance art in our politics and just have people who can actually have a conversation and try to convince the other parties that what we believe in and how we would like to see things is the best way forward, and that's kind of that's the whole point, right? That's that's what we're here for. But let's stop making it performance art because that's really dull.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

I'll go to the theatre for that. If I can just quickly add that this this is the issue, is we've had a very civil conversation, but this is a group of people who have chosen to have a civil conversation, so it's it's probably going to be fairly civil. The issue, the issue we've had is trying to find people to go on this, yeah, and the amount of people that will refuse to have a conversation. Um, it's and I imagine that if we had those people in the room, it would probably be a very different type because the amount of people you contact and they will just say no, it is quite depressing.

Final Pleas To Vote And Wrap

SPEAKER_07 1:11:08

And I have to say it has been a surprise pulling this together in a few days. Thank you to everyone that's taken part in this. Just before we wrap up, as Richard Biggs did earlier, a quick message from each of you. James, your your few seconds words to anyone listening at home, why should they vote on the 7th of May and why reform?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Um of course you should vote, it's obviously one of the most important things you can do. Um what I would recommend to people is to look at the parties, look at their policies, but also look at the individuals, see who you think fits the bill, fits and understands your issues the best. And if you think no, none of them do, just go and spoil your ballots, because even that counts to show that people aren't happy. Why should you vote reform? As I said before, we're the only party that was in favour of the votes going ahead completely. Um we've delivered with the lowest council tax rises, we've saved hundreds of millions of pounds, and we're just normal people that aren't interested in being in politics, we just genuinely want a better area.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:06

Abby Girl?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

Yeah, I mean I appreciate voter frustration is is really real, and as we've mentioned, you know, what 30% go and vote. I'd say to everyone, please go and vote. It doesn't matter who you vote for, in my opinion, but go and vote, because especially with Unitary, it's a it's a one-in-a-generation opportunity to really form what this council looks like. And if everybody goes and does that, then we will have a council that's representative of of this area. Now, of course, I hope that people do go out and vote Labour, and I think if you're really interested in supporting the cost of living and wanting better day-to-day life, then we are doing that. Um I'm not gonna lie, it's not gonna be a job that is gonna be done overnight, maybe not even within this parliament, but every day we are working to make the cost of living easier and better for all.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:00

Thank you very much, Abigail. And Bob, Conservative.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:04

Thank you. Uh well, first of all, I do encourage um people to get out there and vote. And um, there are many parts of the world where we don't enjoy that right. It's important to exercise the right where we do have it. And in terms of voting conservative, which I naturally hope you will do, we have an experienced and competent team on um the county councils, and we are best placed to lead on the transition uh to the new local government structures. It's a complex task, and we want to keep our services running effectively, efficiently, and properly serving the people. And we're best placed to do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:39

And Mark being independent, uh, your final views before we hand to Tony for his reflections of his time guiding this conversation. Stand by, Tony.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:49

Mark, you first. Um I think it's really important. If you if you can go to vote, then you should vote. Um, a lot of people that I've spoken to on the doorstep really don't know who to vote for. So the the best thing that you can do is you can look at the candidate and uh who is the best person that's going to represent you and will stand up for you because that's the most important thing. Will they stand up for you? Will will they protect you? Will they deliver for you? And uh you can be from any party, but go for that person because you know that they're standing in front of you and they'll stand in front of you all day long if they need you to.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:32

Sound advice, I think, from all of you who are standing, and the one big thing that comes out of that is whoever you're gonna vote for, just go and vote. Make sure you vote. It doesn't matter who for, so long as it's for the reasons that you believe in. And it's as very simple as that. As for what's happened this evening, it's been fantastic to actually sit and talk to uh you all with different points of view and different aspects. And well, what more can I say to all of you who are standing in the elections? Good luck.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:05

Yeah, good luck indeed, and thank you very much for listening at home as well. Do check out the Facebook group page, it's Sussex and Surrey Soapbox. Put all your comments and feedback there, and we'll pass them on to the individuals around the table. Enjoy the 7th of May and get out and vote. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. He's been Clive Hilton. Good night. That's me, I'm Clive. I'm Tony Tunner. Keep smiling. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:31

Tell us what do you think? Leave a comment below or click on send a text. Thank you for listening to the Sussex and Surrey snowbox.