Testing Times
Tackling COVID19 outbreaks should be the responsibility of Public Health England. However, the agency, underfunded since it was set up seven years ago, was unprepared to deal with a pandemic.
World Beating Promise
Instead of rapidly expanding Public Health England, the Government opted for a brand new centralised scheme outsourced to private companies. Spending £10 billion on drive through testing and giving £108 million to Serco for contact tracing, the Prime Minister promised a "world beating" system.
Keep it Local
Six months on, the national system is still not working properly. It was Nottinghamshire Public Health that effectively tackled the recent Coronavirus spike in Newark. The outbreak was brought under control by relying on the local knowledge and experience of the District Council and local NHS using a health protection team to track and trace.
Lessons Learned
Now the Government wants to scrap Public Health England. To keep pupils at school and businesses open, dealing with spikes at a local level is the key, not the current costly and failing national system.
Local Election Results May 2023
A spectacular set of elections both nationally and locally here in Newark and Sherwood!
Overall Lib Dem gains were 405 nationally, which posed a problem for Sky News, whose swingometer apparently was not able to contemplate a set of gains of this magnitude. We exceeded 'Exceeded Expectations'!
Our local gains at the district level saw the addition of our third District Councillor with the victory of Keith Melton in Trent Ward. We also kept 2 of 3 councillors for Southwell, now Karen Roberts and Peter Harris. We were encouraged to see the increase in our share of votes in other seats where we were able to field candidtes. Congratulations to everyone.
We had a very good performance in Southwell Town Council, gaining 10 of the 14 seats for which there were candidates, with 6 of these won in elections and 4 being uncontested. Two Conservatives, one Labour candidate and one Independent were also successful. One place on the council remains to be appointed to.
The Conservatives had a terrible set of district and parish elections, losing about half of their district councillors and many PCs. The final DC result was Conservative 14, Labour 11, Independents 11 (8 for Independents for Newark and 3 for other Independents) and Lib Dems 3. Discussions will take place for some time on the composition of the new administration, which is unlikely to include Conservatives for the first time since 2007.
On behalf of the executive, we are extremely grateful to everyone who stood as candidates, as well as everyone who performed the various roles which were necessary for the campaigns. We are a small party and many of you worked very hard.
We are very grateful for their past work to councillors who have stood down at this election, including Peter Scorer and Stuart Thompstone. Malcolm Brock has stood down from the District, though continues to serve on Southwell TC.
We welcome new members to the party, who were motivated by this campaign. This phenomenon was particularly marked in Trent Ward. Upton support has to be singled out, evidenced for anyone who drove through, by the huge number of LD stakeboards and posters.
Philip Barron
Chair, Newark Liberal Democrats
7 May 2023