Aidy Riggott: What are Reform actually reforming in Lancashire?

Cllr Aidy Riggott is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Lancashire County Council.

Lancashire was not immune to the widespread public anger over the failure of successive Governments to grasp and fix several national issues. Reform UK successfully captured this dissatisfaction in Lancashire and rode to victory on a populist tide, taking control of the County Council and resulting in many fine Conservative colleagues undeservingly losing their seats.

I was one of the few who survived and, following the sad loss by a very small margin of our leader’s seat, I stepped up to take on the leadership of our Group. Not something I was anticipating or had planned for.

Reform’s campaign did briefly touch on local issues, claiming that “Lancashire County Council is Broken” and “Needs Reform”

A little over four months later, it is hard to see what they are actually ‘Reforming’. No Budget Amendment presented to Full Council, suggesting that Reform appears content to deliver the same spending profile as laid out by the Conservatives.

The Council Plan remains unchanged, as does the Council’s Treasury Management Policy, despite all the pre-election talk about the size of the Council’s debt. In fact, almost every single policy remains as agreed by the last Conservative Administration.

Maybe it is too much to expect widespread changes this early into an administration built on the back of a strong well thought-out policy agenda, but given the urgency and frequency of the ‘broken’ and ‘needing reform’ arguments thrown at us, to me this is not an unreasonable expectation.

Of course, Reform has made time to debate flags (twice) and free speech – their first two and only motions to Council so far were on these very subjects.

Contrast that with the first two Conservative motions four years ago, following the 2021 County Council elections, in which we thanked the local Fire Authority for their efforts in the Covid vaccination programme and called on the Government to fund a crucial infrastructure project – the reopening of the Poulton to Fleetwood railway line.

Perhaps nothing better demonstrates the gulf in priorities between the last Conservative administration and the current Reform administration. Growth, investment and partnership working under the Conservatives versus banning the Pride flag, sowing division, and a lecture on an Orwellian dystopian future, where the freedom to speak your mind is all but curtailed – under Reform.

Possibly they are the priorities of everyday Lancastrians and we, the Conservatives, got it wrong in focussing on economic growth, attracting investment, and firmly putting Lancashire on the map again by securing our historic first devolution deal, hosting the Convention of the North, writing our first Growth Plan and making the Red Rose County the new home of the National Cyber Force. But somehow, I suspect not, when the long-term impacts are felt on jobs, on opportunity, when ambition is replaced by rhetoric.

Some may say we should be content that Reform are appearing in many ways to govern as Conservatives and that we are naturally closely aligned. My experience is telling me that is not the case.

It appears that Reform have already lost control of the Council’s budget, reporting a near £28 million overspend at the end of the first quarter. Contrast that with the most recent full-year out-turn under the last Conservative administration which showed a £10.6 million overspend on a net annual revenue budget of over £1.1 billion.

Under Reform, response times to casework enquires were doubled to four weeks, public consultations were published with traffic flowing the wrong way, and perhaps most embarrassingly of all, Reform attempted to unveil a Highways Reporting Tool as their own work, hoping that residents would forget that they had been using this since the Conservatives introduced it back in 2022.

Visits are now slowly being made to many Conservative initiated investment projects – a new second home for Lancashire Cricket bringing elite facilities to Lancashire, our £55 million Levelling Up East Lancashire project and the many partnership schemes we jointly funded with our District Councils and Higher Education Institutions right across Lancashire via our own £20 million Lancashire Economic Growth and Development Investment Fund. But nothing new is being talked about or proposed by the Reform administration.

There was lots of talk of ‘DOGE’ but 125 days later they are yet to arrive in Lancashire. Promises to eradicate vast levels of waste to deliver efficiency savings of £5 in every £100 the Council spends, and of freezing of Council Tax, seem long forgotten.

Reform have announced “a review” into what it described as “asylum and illegal migrant housing” yet months later the nature of that work is unknown, nor has it yet appeared on a Cabinet or any other meeting agenda. Perhaps just another ill-thought through promise to its supporters driven by rhetoric overload.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is just about to crest the hill in Lancashire. The now Reform Leader of the County Council said prior to the elections in a hustings debate that:

“If we win the County Council, Reform will have a referendum across Lancashire and ask Lancashire people what they want.”

And what are we getting instead; a much-delayed ‘public survey’ which offers no direction and no vision for the future of Lancashire.

Much like the rest of Reform’s non-existent policy agenda.