The Salisbury lesson: Fight for local democracy

IT’S easy once you’re elected as a councillor to get bogged down in detail.
Whether that’s discussing how quickly we can afford to switch our grounds team to electric vehicles, or poring over planning applications to do what little we can to protect our environment. Debating how to spend the public art budget, whether or not we spend people’s taxes lighting a Jubilee beacon, refurbishing public toilets … whatever. 
I’m not saying these details aren’t important. They are. They affect all our day-to-day lives. And I get heavily involved.
Let’s face it, Salisbury’s is only a parish council, not a strategic authority. What did I expect? To be changing the world?
Well, of course not. I didn’t expect anything other than what I’ve got, and I am exceptionally lucky to have been given a leadership role in working for the benefit of our lovely city.
BUT. And there is a big BUT. It’s also easy amid all this detail to lose sight of what persuaded me to put myself up for this job in the first place, and to do it the hard way, as an Independent, rather than joining a party and sharing the load.
And this was it. Salisbury gets a crap deal out of the current local government setup.
It has lost so much since the creation of the unitary authority at Trowbridge. Nobody in their right mind could argue otherwise.
Demotion, crucially, has cost us our role as a planning authority with a say over how our area will develop in future. We are struggling to finalise a Neighbourhood Plan that will give us a very limited input into the process. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do that. We should.
But we need to take a long, hard look at where we stand. What we shouldn’t have to do is to put up with this third-class status. Why aren’t people up in arms?
I was driven to these reflections by an article headlined The Salisbury Lesson, which I’m attaching to this post. Its theme? “Protect Democracy: Keep It Local”.
It was written by Richard Pavitt, an Independent councillor in Uttlesford, Essex – a community that’s threatened with a similar fate to ours by government bean-counters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
He draws on the invaluable experience of our former MP Rob Key to warn Essex voters not to take it lying down.
For anyone interested in the future of democracy, and concerned about the drift towards ever more centralised decision-making, it’s a thought-provoking read, pointing out that as the organisations running our lives get larger and larger, people are more and more inclined to vote for a party rather than an individual, because they don’t know the candidates.
And that means we get candidates whose loyalty is to voting along party lines regardless of what might be best for us peasants. Independents get squeezed out.
I’m not directing this at any elected individuals in particular. And I suspect that those who can be bothered to read it will be the ones who already share my views.
But hey ho, I feel obliged to keep telling people: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Get involved.

Maybe Boris should pop along to the Playhouse

WITH uncanny timing given the state of international affairs at present, Salisbury Playhouse’s latest production, The Children, is set in the wake of a nuclear disaster.
This is due, not to war, but to a tidal wave swamping a poorly-designed power station on the coast and causing some kind of meltdown. 
You can tell from the lack of detail in this description that I’m not a scientist! Unlike the three characters in this unsettling but absorbing play, who are all scientists, of the retired nuclear variety.
I do recommend it. No need to give away the plot, but it operates on several levels – about sexual relationships, about parenting, about our failure to live up to our global responsibilities, about what kind of world we are leaving to future generations. 
It’s often funny, which might seem weird given the seriousness of the subject matter, but it’s a slow burner building to a distinctly unfunny climax. Very clever.
Anyway, you hardly need me to draw the link between potential nuclear catastrophe, the recent Russian occupation of Chernobyl, and the terrifying carelessness of those invading forces.
But it’s not unreasonable to also look at Britain’s response to the current situation. How do we reduce our reliance on oil and gas to protect ourselves against future disruption to supply systems? Why, sure, with more wind and solar farms, but also, according to Boris Johnson, with eight more nuclear power stations dotted around our coastline.
“This is the home of nuclear energy,” boasted our Prime Minister. “We’re bringing nuclear home!” 
He made it all sound so simple. So safe. Not quite a quick-fix solution, but a great soundbite to quieten current anxiety. Another of his three-word mantras – Bring Nuclear Home. I’m sure he meant to instil confidence in his listeners. If only I could share it.
Perhaps he should pop along to the Playhouse. 

Picture by Simon Aanand