Thousands of items of personal protection equipment are being stored at councils across Lincolnshire as officers ramp up preparations ahead of the local elections.

It will be a very different situation when residents vote on May 6. The county’s polling stations will have hand sanitiser on arrival, voters will be asked to wear face coverings and socially distance while staff and volunteers will be situated behind plastic screens for protection.

People will be asked to bring their own pens where possible, though some will be available, and a one-in, one-out system will be used.

Council bosses, however, have said there will not be any detrimental impact over the changes.

Graham Watts, elections manager at City of Lincoln Council, said the changes were no different to the kinds of things you’d find in a supermarket currently.

“I’m very confident that it’ll be an efficient visit to the polling station and we can get people through as we would normally relatively quickly,” he said.

The significant investment required for the preparations will be funded, once tallied, by central government grant funding.

The timing for this year’s local elections will include:

• Thursday, May 6 – Voting takes place from 7am to 10pm
• Thursday night – Votes are verified ahead of the count and transferred to the Assembly Rooms
• Friday morning – County council votes will be counted and announced
• Friday afternoon – City council votes will be counted and announced
• Saturday – Votes for the Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner will be counted

Graham reassured residents that votes will be locked in a safe environment until they are counted and will be monitored 24-7 to ensure they cannot be tampered with.

It’s not just the safety precautions around polling stations either, some locations have changed in order to provide bigger premises, but restrict the use of schools.

“We tend to use quite a few schools in Lincoln and across the county as well,” said Graham.

“[There’s an] issue in terms of trying not to impact education any further than it’s already been impacted this year, so in Lincoln, we’ve had to be quite innovative.”

For instance, the Ian Shammon showroom, on Boultham Park, along with other local businesses will play their part in the election this year.

Postal votes are starting to arrive now as well, and so far, Graham said there had been an increase but not in the numbers they had expected yet.

More local elections coverage here

• Local Elections 2021: Lincolnshire party leaders’ promises on your issues
• Local Elections 2021: The Lincolnshire County Council candidates
• Local Elections 2021: The City of Lincoln Council candidates

Councils across the country and in Lincolnshire have had to deal with dramatic central budget cuts in the past decade, and the COVID crisis in 2020/21 has compounded that issue. Yet a few notorious challenges remain a priority for Lincolnshire people ahead of the local elections on May 6.

The Lincolnite has spoken to communities across Lincolnshire, from Grantham to Boston, to Market Rasen and Louth. Three standout issues emerged from our discussions, and were at the hearts of people in the county after a year of being in lockdown: potholes, street lighting and fly-tipping.

Road maintenance comes down to funding from central government, street lighting was another way for councils to save money, and fly-tipping is a complex problem as the tips are run by the county council, but the district councils have to deal with the clean up and general rubbish, garden waste and recycling collections.

The Lincolnite spoke to the four main political party leaders in Lincolnshire: Cllr Martin Hill (Conservatives), Cllr Rob Parker (Labour), Cllr Marianne Overton (Lincolnshire Independents) and Cllr Matthew Boles (Liberal Democrats) about their electoral promises. They represent more than 250 candidates in almost 70 wards standing in the Lincolnshire County Council elections. See the full candidate list here.

Martin Hill (Conservatives)

Current leader of the county council, Conservative Cllr Martin Hill will stand for his ward, Folkingham Rural on May 6. He promised his party will look to “continue the good work” it has done over the past few years if re-elected. This includes keeping council tax low, improving roads, broadband and other infrastructure.

Cllr Martin Hill said: “The council tax we have put up is just under 2%, where we could have gone to 5%, and we will remain the second lowest council tax precept county council in the whole country.”

The council has received over £40 million extra funding from government to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, to support people who need extra help in the care sector and those with lost income. The council also put aside from its reserves a £12 million support package for local businesses facing difficulties recovering the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside another £200,000 for an emergency flood response scheme.

Cllr Hill believes more funding is needed in areas like highways, but savings have been made, such as £2.5 million a year by not having street lights turned on between midnight and 6am. Yet the Conservatives’ main priorities are with road maintenance. The council spends around £50 million a year on highways and a further £35 million on tarmac, with an additional £12 million being put into the highways budget this year.

In a bid to get more funding for Lincolnshire, Martin Hill has been an advocate and continues to strive for devolution for Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire, saying he believes it would give more power and money to the region. However, government ministers previously said Lincolnshire’s devolution bid could only come alongside a new mayor role, which was a deal breaker in previous discussions.

Rob Parker (Labour)

Labour opposition leader Cllr Rob Parker is standing for his ward, Lincoln Carholme, on May 6. Labour are putting one of the key issues highlighted by people of Lincolnshire at the forefront of their campaign – street lighting.

They have a four point manifesto which includes wanting Lincolnshire to become a green beacon, improving public transport, switching street lights on at night and supporting young people during the pandemic. Labour want to turn street lights back on all night, but replace them with energy efficient LED lighting. If they were in power, they would implement a £7.2 million spending programme over three years to do this.

Labour’s green priority will include championing the use of electric vehicles and having a green approach to delivering services. Through improved public transport, Labour hope to make savings. For example, if fewer people are having to use cars and use an enhanced version of public transport, less work will be required on the roads, they say. This would also include improved bus services and promoting more walking and cycling under the Labour plans.

The final Labour priority is a catch up schooling programme in the summer holidays and weekends for young people affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Labour said “nobody will be left behind” as the county recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially young people, if their party are put in power.

Marianne Overton (Lincolnshire Independents)

Lincolnshire Independents are the third main party standing in local elections this year, with leader Cllr Marianne Overton fighting to keep her seat in Bassingham and Welbourn. The Independents leader said the main concerns her party have are wind turbines spoiling rural landscapes, the centralisation of planning decisions, changes to CCGs and devolution.

Cllr Overton is concerned about planning proposals to allow large onshore wind turbines to be approved, spoiling the rural countryside of Lincolnshire. Historically, the Conservatives have opposed onshore wind farms, but supported offshore ones.

Cllr Overton’s other campaign issues revolve around devolution, where she says one Greater Lincolnshire body would reduce thepower of district councils, such as North Kesteven District Council, which is run by a combined Conservative and Independent partnership called the ‘NK Administration Group’.

The Independents also criticised the government’s plans to scrap the planning system, so decision-making is more centralised.  The Lincolnshire Independents want strong local control over their own councils and areas.

The Lincolnshire Independents leader said she was opposed to any plans to “sweep away” clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and replace them with a new body. CCGs deal with the planning and commissioning of health care services for their local area.

The Lincolnshire Independents say they will be “local champions” if elected and have promised to “listen carefully” to what residents think is important.

Matthew Boles (Liberal Democrats)

Councillor Matthew Boles will be fighting for his county council division, Gainsborough Hill, in next month’s election. He is the only Liberal Democrat with a county council seat, despite the party having a strong local hold of West Lindsey District Council.

He believes the Conservative county administration has failed Lincolnshire in terms of getting fair funding, despite having “had the mechanisms through controlling the county council”.

In his division, Cllr Boles has been campaigning for services to be restored at John Coupland Hospital.

Street lighting is second on the agenda for the Liberal Democrats, with them campaigning to keep them switched on all night. Cllr Boles disputes that there is no link to crime due to streetlights turned off.

The delays and maintenance in fixing potholes is another priority for the Liberal Democrats. They believe it’s important to fix jobs as quickly and efficiently as possible to save money in the long term in order to prevent potholes getting worse and harder to fix.

They Liberal Democrats are also calling on the county council to restore waste recycling centres and keep them open fully due to their unavailability during the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike, Cllr Hill, they believe “if a tip was fully open, this might alleviate some of these issues.”

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The hot topics: Potholes, street lights and fly-tipping

After a year in lockdown, we asked people across Lincolnshire what is most important to them for the next council in power to combat.

The Lincolnite reached out to communities online in Lincoln, Sleaford, Spalding, Grantham, Market Rasen, Gainsborough, Louth, Skegness, Mablethrope and Boston.

What we found was that a lot of your priorities were with the issues of potholes, street lights and fly-tipping.

We then asked the four main party leaders their thoughts on these issues and how they would tackle them.

What the people of Lincolnshire said:

Sarah Wilson said: “Pot holes, everywhere! I’m actually scared to drive to Lincoln with the amount of swerving I have to do, it’s so dangerous. Why have the roads been allowed to get in this state? Where is the money going? With road safety in Lincolnshire being such a high priority with all the campaigns and everything because of the high number of deaths it just seems inconceivable to me that something as, in my opinion, basic, as this has become such a huge issue.”

Kerry Drayton said street lighting was a concern: “Couldn’t the council put on every other light on throughout town and then every street would have light! (Don’t get me wrong it would be brilliant if all the lights were on!).”

Sarah Blades said that “fly tipping in the villages surrounding Gainsborough” was an issue.

What the election candidates said:

Potholes

Martin Hill (Conservatives) said: “We’re mending over 100,000 potholes a year on average and it is a job to maintain it. Government should give more money to councils out of the road tax, the fuel tax that they get, and really across the whole country more money should be given to highways maintenance.”

Rob Parker (Labour) said: “Lincolnshire and the Conservatives at the moment spend a significant amount of money on highway maintenance. The question is whether we’re getting value for money out of it. We haven’t got the resources to fix a pothole within a week of it being reported, we need to get that message across to dampen down expectation levels.”

Marianne Overton (Lincolnshire Independents) said: “The consequence of [austerity] is that we have roads that have fallen apart to their very foundation, so now we’re filling potholes on the top. They’re in a really poor state and many of them need significant improvements, which nobody can see how that’s ever going to be funded.”

Matthew Boles (Liberal Democrats) said: “It’s not necessarily about spending more money, it’s about spending your money wisely and being more effective. If you can repair these potholes when they’re smaller, they’re not going to expand into the giant craters we’re seeing.”

Street lighting

Martin Hill (Conservatives) said: “We are going to spend more money on domestic violence and domestic abuse […] tackling and trying to prevent domestic violence is a priority. If there is a local issue and it’s the right thing to do, we will switch lights back on.”

Rob Parker (Labour) said: “We want to ensure that the county council’s streetlights are switched back on throughout the night and convert them to energy efficient LED lighting. We certainly know that would be popular in Lincoln with its universities and particularly for women and also in rural areas.”

Marianne Overton (Lincolnshire Independents) said: “It’s about having a proper, sensitive listening approach to looking at each application from residents carefully. Just a blanket approach of turning them off in so many places is not detailed enough and that’s why you need local Independents who understand the local areas and are prepared to speak up for them.”

Matthew Boles (Liberal Democrats) said: “We all believe that turning off streetlights has had an impact on crime and not just actual crime, but the fear of crime. The police are starting to change that position, so hopefully if they do, we might be able to enact some change. I believe there are many reasons why we should have the lights back on.”

Fly-tipping

Martin Hill (Conservatives) said: “When the pandemic is over, we want to make sure people will be able to go to the tip when they reasonably can and not have to book or queue. People throwing stuff out their car has got absolutely nothing to do with whether the tip is open or not.”

Rob Parker (Labour) said: “We have to be promoting fly-tipping as something that is completely socially unacceptable. We need to keep our household waste recycling centres open as much as we can so there is an opportunity for people to take the rubbish not to the nearest dark part of Lincolnshire and bin it, but to take it easily, quickly and efficiently to a household recycling centre.”

Marianne Overton (Lincolnshire Independents) said: “One thing we can do is to make sure there is easy access to getting rid of rubbish. Secondly, what we already do is actually investigate and prosecute wherever is possible. Thirdly, it’s about education, it’s about making sure that children, people and everybody does not accept it. We need local Independent voices speaking up for our areas.”

Matthew Boles (Liberal Democrats) said: “We are calling on the county council to scrap the click and tip scheme and the conditions in place on the waste recycling centres and open them up fully, as they were pre-COVID. We believe there should be some additional provision or resources put into some sort of education about littering and fly tipping.”

A man born and bred in Lincolnshire has opened a new family-run aromatherapy business on Steep Hill in Lincoln, inspired by a car accident which introduced him to the world of herbal remedies.

Ash Meredith, 32, opened the doors to Ashby Aromatherapy and Gifts on Steep Hill on Friday, April 16, but the business has been thriving for a while now.

The company began in 2013, and has been supplying unique scents for chemists in Ireland as well as other shops across the UK, including Pennells Garden Centre.

Ashby products are designed to enhance or diffuse your mood, and they are cruelty free, with no animal testing in the process of creation.

All ingredients are locally sourced and natural, and Ash can even create some remedies to order if you want specific aromas.

They would be sold at various festivals and events across the country in the form of pop-up shops, but Ash decided the tiring shows and a lack of work/life balance was getting on top of him.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Ash went about trying to open his own store, as he was not eligible for government business support grants.

Despite the financial pressures of the pandemic, Ashby survived and prospered.

“COVID-19 was a bit of a wake up call really,” Ash said, “lockdown gave us time to prepare for something new, it made us determined.”

It wasn’t Ash’s initial plan to work in the field of aromatherapy, but he was inspired after an accident which left him psychologically scarred.

In 2011, Ash was hit by a car when walking down the street in Lincoln, leaving him with physical scars but also a lot of mental stress, which prompted flashbacks every time he walked on the pavement near cars.

A friend of his recommended herbal teas to help with stress, which then saw Ash research other remedies and eventually work towards creating his own remedies.

Ash was a business graduate from his time at university, so decided to combine his degree with his love of aromatherapy to launch a new business.

Along with his mum Helen, Ash would set up Ashby’s in 2013 and go on to open his very own shop on the iconic Steep Hill in Lincoln in 2021.

Ash told The Lincolnite that business has been going great since he opened the doors, and he can’t wait for the future.

“Considering we haven’t even promoted our opening properly, the reaction has been amazing.

“We have been working on the shop since January, so people walking by have almost followed the journey. One person even asked us if they could buy something before we opened!

“We’ve been smashing targets and I am really happy with how things are going.”

Visit Ashby Aromatherapy and Gifts at 24a Steep Hill, Lincoln.

A Lincoln-based illustrator has released her first published graphic novel inspired by a dream, her real life experiences as a single parent and Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting music video.

Helen Dearnley moved from Spalding to Lincoln in 2005 to do a degree in Fine Art and Illustration and has lived in the city ever since. She has been working as a freelance illustrator since graduation and in 2009 she set up Helen Dearnley Fine Art & Illustration.

The idea for her new graphic novel Cloudbusting was conceived during the 2012 floods in Lincolnshire. Helen then began to develop the idea and also took inspiration from reading Eric Drooker’s graphic novel ‘Flood!’.

She illustrated her graphic novel Cloudbusting from the perspective of a single parent searching for work during the age of austerity.

She completed the graphic novel in 2017 and thanks to Artithmeric, hardback copies were launched online earlier this month. It is available to buy for £25.50 and Helen hopes booksellers and libraries will stock it in the future.

Cloudbusting is a dream, in which a female and male colleague are seen working together, carrying a large, heavy object up a hill. They appear as small silhouettes.

The characters in Kate Bush’s music video have been re-appropriated to place the woman as the ‘Professor’ and her male colleague working together,.

Near the end of the original music video there is a reference to a newspaper article in New York with the headline ‘Rainmaker storms city’. Helen wanted to localise this in her novel by referencing The Lincolnite, saying “if the events happened here it would be in The Lincolnite“.

The graphic novel also takes inspiration from A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’ music video, with Helen having collaborated with the band, as well as Canadian electro-funk duo Chromeo, on previous projects.

Helen told The Lincolnite: “It feels really good and I am hoping people will get excited and buy it.

“It will be interesting for people in Lincoln and Lincolnshire. There are not many people making graphic novels in or about Lincoln, and I feel happy to see my graphic novel in print.

“All creatives were #excludeduk from any business support. I was running some art workshops, but when lockdown hitm that stopped and it restricted business opportunities, but I stayed positive and am looking ahead to the future.”

After graduation Helen ran Lincoln Artists’ Network as a business venture for a few years and up until last spring she worked teaching cycle training for Bikeability.

She is also a carer for her two sons who have mental health conditions and continues to work as a self-employed illustrator.

She has previously self-published a variety of comics and zines, including Ms Blackbird’s Home for Peculiar People and Taped from MTV.

Taped from MTV was commissioned by Chromeo who wanted Helen to make them a personalised comic. She gave it to them at a gig at the Printworks in London in 2018.

Helen also previously collaborated with Morten Harket from A-ha, doing a self-portrait for him in 2010, as well as some other artwork for the band. She was also commissioned to illustrate a book called Move To Oslo by Tanya Fleck.

She is looking forward to showcasing and selling her graphic novels, comics and other artistic work at the Thought Bubble Comic Con event in Harrogate later this year on November 13 and 14.

Helen is also available for artistic commissions and any request can be emailed to her at [email protected].

You can buy the graphic novel from here.