Councillors sparred over the environment and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service at a meeting of Sefton Council at Southport Town Hall last night.
Mayor of Sefton, Cllr June Burn, opened the meeting by paying tribute to Anthony Hill and Richard Hands, both former councillors and former mayors who have recently passed away.
In an otherwise procedural meeting, tense exchanges were reserved for discussion over the presentation of a Sefton Council progress report on the climate emergency, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, and a new Council policy designed to mitigate the impact of vexatious complaints.
Independent Councillor Sean Halsall raised concerns about firefighter safety, questioning the impact on understaffed crews who might be asked to attend additional calls during a callout. This prompted a strong response from Cllr Les Byrom, Chair of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, who insisted, “The Labour-controlled Authority would not place the safety of its fire crews at risk.”
He added that despite being regularly evaluated as the best fire service in the country, the Authority would “continue to strive for improvements.”
As a new Council policy was introduced to mitigate the impact of vexatious complaints, former Southport MP Cllr John Pugh asked the Council to be mindful that there could be a risk that the policy was wrongly applied to an individual making vocal complaints against Sefton Council that may be entirely justifiable.
The new “Unreasonably Persistent and Unacceptable Behaviour Policy” will introduce a range of measures where an individual is judged to be using the Council’s various complaints procedures in bad faith.
In response Leader of the Council, Cllr Marion Atkinson, informally agreed to keep the policy under continual periodic review, but urged Cllr Pugh and colleagues to support members when they were unfairly attacked.
Cllr Atkinson told the chamber: “Part of this was to deal with issues that we face on a daily basis and to stop the resources of the Council being used unfairly and wrongly. I do hope that you’d stand by, particularly the women in this chamber when we do get that abuse. When we’re vilified for our shapes, our sizes, for how we look and what we wear, on Twitter and social media when we’re tagged in. I hope you’d stand behind women in this chamber.”
The presentation of the Council’s annual progress report on the climate emergency was no less contentious.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Iain Brodie-Browne said that while the report had a number of “valuable” initiatives, he urged the Council to be “a bit more ambitious.”
“It’s been a convenient excuse for the past ten years for blaming the ‘wretched Tories’ that there’s been no money. None of those Tories stopped you from claiming grants that were available to Sefon for environmental matters.
“Money has been available from the Government since 2017 to install Electric Vehicle Charging points. If you wished to envisage a league table of local authorities who’ve installed electric car charging points, you would cast your eyes down the list past the county councils, past the parish councils and there at the foot of the table in the relegation zone would be Sefton.
“If you wanted to travel to Southport ‘don’t bring your electric car’ is the message”.
Making his maiden speech, Cllr Neil Doolin of the Green Party says that the Council’s plan has “so many things that are missing”, such as targets for loft insulation, heat pumps, number of renewable energy projects supported, or to raise rates of cycling and walking.
Labour Councillor Sonya Kelly accused Councillors Brodie-Browne and Halsall of refusing air quality monitor installations in Birkdale village. Cllr Brodie-Browne retorted that monitoring air quality at level crossings was “a waste of money” and insisted, “If you want to reduce pollution, you need to get cracking on alternate forms of transport.” prompting jibes of “like cycle lanes?” from the Labour benches.
When Cllr Atkinson asked, “Don’t you think we’ve tried this?” regarding environmental grant funding applications, she received a terse “No” from the Liberal Democrat benches.
Cllr Atkinson concluded by expressing hope that the recent Labour government election victory would lead to more effective action on the climate emergency, noting that reduced central funding from the previous Conservative government had hampered local efforts in this area.
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