Bedford Councillors being excluded by Mayor
On 10th July’s Council Meeting, Liberal Democrats challenged the Mayor to include councillors from the unparished areas of Bedford onto a committee that allocates funding for those same unparished areas. Currently, the only councillors on the committee are Conservatives from the rural areas.
Cllr Michael Headley said: “No Conservative councillors were elected for an urban unparished area, so it is wrong that they are the only councillors on this crucial committee making decisions on spending hundreds of thousands of pounds for the residents that we were elected to represent. To exclude all the councillors for the areas impacted by the decisions is utterly indefensible. We urge the Mayor not be partisan and work in the best interests of all the residents of the Borough.”
CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) is a levy that local authorities can choose to charge on most new built development in their area. This raises funding to carry out infrastructure projects to benefit the whole community, some of which is designated for the unparished parts of Bedford. Bedford Borough Council’s CIL committee consists purely of Conservative councillors.
Previously, unparished areas were represented on this committee. But the Mayor has excused having no unparished area councillors on the CIL committee because he wanted it to cover all CIL, not just unparished area CIL.
However, as Cllr Headley noted at Full Council on 10th July, the Wixams station project now includes using all available uncommitted Borough-wide CIL until 2032/2033.
Cllr Michael Headley added, “As there is no longer any Borough wide CIL decision to be taken for the next eight years, the only decision is to be taken around the unparished area CIL. Why will the Mayor not commit to having councillors from every party representing the unparished areas on the Committee rather than 100% Conservatives composition who only represent parished areas?”
Notes
The exclusion of Councillors from all other parties from the Community Infrastructure Levy Committee has been raised by the Liberal Democrats before, including the Mayor voting to agree with the proposal to include representatives from unparished areas. Something he has now seemingly backtracked on.
And councillors from other groups representing unparished areas have also raised concerns previously and the Liberal Democrat Group is calling for one Liberal Democrat, one Labour and one Green Councillor to be included as advisory members of the Committee to ensure unparished areas are represented.