The Conservative leadership in North East Lincolnshire will face its first big test on May 6, as after two years in power it will hope its main Labour opposition haven’t yet bounced back.
In 2019, Labour — whose grip on the council already depended on a tenuous alliance with the Liberal Democrats — lost control by losing just three seats while their Tory opponents gained five.
Ahead of the election they had faced a number of controversial decisions, including the Toll Bar Roundabout and their former party leader being arrested (and later in the year convicted) for drink-driving.
However, despite some successes over the past two years the Conservatives have seen their own choices questioned and their own controversy around their (now resigned) deputy leader Councillor John Fenty’s dealings with a convicted fraudster.
On May 6, there are 61 candidates contesting 14 ward seats in the North East Lincolnshire Council elections next month. See all the candidates here.
We spoke to party leaders ahead of the election to get their thoughts and priorities this time round.
Cllr Matthew Patrick – Labour
Councillor Matthew Patrick, Labour group leader on North East Lincolnshire Council. Picture: Calvin Robinson
The Leader of North East Lincolnshire’s Labour Party Councillor Matthew Patrick said his party had learnt the lessons of the last election and accepts that a lack of engagement and consultation contributed to their downfall.
“Obviously we didn’t lose the council by accident,” he said. “Slowly but surely though, I’m looking forward to actually rebuilding residents’ trust.
“It’s absolutely important that when Labour hopefully one day does run the council again, that they can actually see their voice and their news in the decisions we make. We’ve got to listen to residents and make them feel they’ve been listened to.”
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and some people self-isolating, Councillor Patrick said residents had been keen to engage with campaigners.
Councillor Patrick said conversations with residents so far had indicated some voters were “coming back to Labour”
“There’s cautious optimism out there and people are coming back to their natural party.
“Both locally and nationally, the Labour Party has moved on, and I’m looking forward to a lot of residents looking at the Labour Party and seeing the party that they grew up with them, familiar with who speaks for them and their interests.”
However, he did not rule out a joint leadership with another party, similar to that prior to the 2019 elections.
Key priorities for the party in this election will focus on clean streets, tackling fly-tipping, boosting the economic growth of the area, protecting support for more vulnerable residents and increasing mental health support.
Councillor Patrick was critical of Conservative decisions to “scale back” a weekly recycling scheme, their approach to fly-tipping and the closures of family hubs and the Floral Hall in Grimsby’s Peoples’ Park.
He said residents would “come to their own conclusions” about Councillor John Fenty stepping down from cabinet and deciding not to run during the 2021 elections.
He said his party believed regeneration and economic growth had “stalled” under the Conservatives — noting that grants from central government had “been lower than what we’ve actually bid for”.
He said that the caliber of his party’s candidates were “some of the best we’ve had for a very long time,” adding: “You can see some very good examples of representation across the board that everybody can relate to.”
Cllr Philip Jackson — Conservative
Philip Jackson, leader of the NEL Conservatives. Picture: Calvin Robinson.
Conservative Party leader Councillor Philip Jackson felt his party had proved themselves in their first two years in power and said residents recognised the good progress made despite COVID-19.
“We’ve done a pretty good job in that we’ve tackled and sorted out a lot of the problems that the previous Labour administration seemed either unwilling or incapable of resolving.
“We have met many of our manifesto commitments from two years ago and the ones that we haven’t we’re still working on.”
Councillor Jackson said there had been a “sea change in political thinking” in the region.
“People recognise that that’s been good progress, especially considering over the past year we’ve had all the delays and difficulties caused by the COVID pandemic,” he said.
His plan is to build on things like street cleaning, the Town Deal, the regeneration of Grimsby and Cleethorpes and increasing recycling rates.
He said COVID-19 had left his party “somewhat restricted” in the amount of contact they had been able to have with the electorate, and that they were looking forward to further restrictions.
The party is targeting particular wards and is hoping that even if they don’t succeed in increasing the number of seatsl they will hold steady at their current level.
“They are all in what we will consider to be relatively safe wards, if there is such a thing as a safe ward these days, so probably the worst case scenario, unless something goes horribly wrong, we’ll come out to the other side of the elections on May 6 with the same number of seats we’ve got now, which will still give us an overall majority on the council.”
Councillor Jackson was unfazed by the controversy surrounding his deputy, again repeating that Councillor Fenty had been “assiduous in declaring any interest” he had on council agendas and stepped back from conflicts.
He noted that despite allegations made by his opponents, no evidence of wrong doing was presented and there were no reports to the Standards Committee.
“There’s a recognition out there that things are being done above board, and there isn’t any concern from that viewpoint,” he said.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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