Worcestershire County Council Meeting 22 May
Reform UK have successfully increased representation on Worcestershire County Council from 1 councillor to 27 councillors. This however 2 short of a majority, meaning that your Reform councillors will have a battle in the next few years as it became clear in the County Council meeting held a Finepoint (Wyre Forest) on Thursday 22 May. All of the other councillors regardless of their political views have grouped together to fight against the Reform councillors.
It is interesting that a vote for any party other than Reform UK seems to have been a vote for an anti-Reform councillor. There seems to be a consensus amongst all of the other parties, that "anyone is better than Reform". A vote for Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, or Independent gets you the same representation in the County Council.
Change of council constitution
The first major vote taken following the election of the Council Chair and Deputy Chair was to change the Council constitution to increase the level of scrutiny over council decisions. Which has apparently been proposed in previous administrations but resisted by the then Conservative administration, but now we have a Reform minority administration it is apparently essential increase the level of scrutiny.
The change means that there are additional councillors added to existing scrutiny committees, it was declared that these additional roles will not be paid. Let's see if that remains the case.
In addition the change allows councillors who are members of the scrutiny committees to nominate a substitute if they cannot attend. Which is common place on other committees.
Reform UK County Councillors welcome scrutiny, and have campaigned on transparency and accountability, but it seems that the other parties and independents want to hold the Reform councillors to a higher level of scrutiny than they have been held to in the past.
In a show of defiance and solidarity the Reform UK councillors voted against the change in the constitution as the number of committee members on the scrutiny committees will have little effect on the ability of the other county councils scrutinise the administration.
Worcester Hospital Parking
A proposal to investigate the use the Worcester County Hall car park as an overflow parking facility for the hospital.
The proposal, that had the support of all of the Councillors, is to investigate how the car park at County Hall can be used to alleviate the parking capacity issues at the hospital.
A common-sense proposal for the benefit of Worcestershire residents gaining full support from your Reform UK councillors, however should self funding and not be an additional burden on council tax payers.
Take a look for yourself
You can read details of the meeting and watch the webcast of the whole meeting and judge for yourself.
Worcestershire County Council meeting Thursday 22 May
The Wyre Forest Reform UK branch meetings this coming Monday and Wednesday will give you an opportunity to meet your Reform UK councillors and discuss what happened in tis weeks council meeting.