I was not going to say anything at Thursday’s meeting. Mostly this was due to the fact that at exactly twenty-five minutes to seven, ten minutes before I was due to remotely join the meeting I was shaking like a leaf and simply petrified. My mouth was dry ,my throat was thick and the thought of anyone asking me something was terrifying.
Luckily, my wife was on hand and gave me the words needed to press ahead. But that is where I am right now. I hope it gets better and I get my confidence back but I have to face up to the fact that it may be a long haul.
With it being a remote meeting, I was of course able to switch off my camera from time to time. This is useful for someone like me whose recent issues have left him with a most horrendous dry skin rash on his face with a few swollen and itchy hives to add to the mix. Mental wellbeing is not always an issue that manifests just in the mind can I add?
Anyway it was the budget and I wanted to support my hard working finance team who had produced a cracker. ! a positive budget without cuts , in this era , fabulous and being fully balanced with a little more going into reserves was the cherry on top of the squirty cream on top of the cake.
So, I was happy just to offer a well-practiced “FOR!” when asked my voting preference when an amendment was put forward that summed up 4 years of frustration being Leader of the Council.
One of our budget proposals was to hire a Climate Emergency Officer. Relatively small cost but tasked with educating and leading the Councils drive to reduce carbon usage and secure funding for Green energy and climate supporting initiatives that may even bring a few quid to Council Coffers at the same time of hopefully saving the planet.
"The LEP have an officer for this" the Councillor stated in that usual defeatist nasal whine so accurately portrayed of politicians by satirists , we should ask them to help , the county council has one we could ask them too.
For me that was it in a nutshell and I had to speak up.
We declared a climate “emergency” not a climate “incident” or a climate “bit of an issue down the road”.
A part time officer funded by my cabinet had brought in a huge amount of funding for green initiatives and here they were suggesting we just use any other resource except out own.
We have to stop trying to do things on the cheap!
The Council had relied on help from The LEP or County Council for a decade and that why we had little or no regeneration. Applications galore for this or for that turned down or just missed out on. " Unfortunately your bid was unsuccessful" is a line I was sick to death of reading.
Only when we start doing things ourselves, funding projects ourselves have we seen growth and movement.
Asking The LEP or the County Council to bale us out, to achieve our aims and to share our ambition wont do. We need to show we are serious, that our projects are believed in , and that we have the wotsits to not only stand by them but to show these projects off , proud and loud.
That’s when The LEP and the County Council might be inclined to assist and join in , when we are standing on our own two feet. They might just get their wallets out then rather than just look to see what change they have in their pocket for the Forest of Dean .
Covid 19 continues to be horrendous, but it is not a time for Councils like ours to curl up and just accept the blows that rain down upon us,
Now is the time, to rip our shirts off and shout loud and proud that we are here and we are not only going to get through this but we are going to build the active prosperous and climate aware district we want it to be.
No more shrinking violets, no more switching the camera off.
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