At the start of this week my fellow Labour councillors chose me to take on the leadership of the minority administration on Brighton and Hove City Council.
After five years of Warren Morgan’s leadership this will mean a significant change to the council and obviously a big change for me personally.
Subject to the agreement of the full council on Thursday 17 May, I will become leader of the city council and will take overall responsibility for the services, changes and solutions that local residents expect, even against the backdrop of massive central government cuts and rising demand.
I know that this will mean that to some in the city I will instantly become the person most responsible for the services they feel require most improvement.
I do not underestimate the amount of “blame” that will be heaped on my door or my email inbox.
But I stood for election because, just like so many residents, I want to see things improve – services stronger, housing delivered, vulnerable safe and books balanced.
Achieving those four is not a short-term solution and won’t be easy. It would be wrong, however, to bury our heads in the sand and pretend these are not real issues to so many of us daily.
As someone who moved into the city only a dozen years ago, but who has been close to the city for decades, it is a great honour to be able to take a role in leading the city council through these tough times.
Many of our plans will remain the same and we must push harder and faster on those.
However, that doesn’t mean that everything will stay the same – it never does.
I would like to be able to lead a council that shows that it is more open and transparent than residents currently see.
By being more open to listening to people’s problems, and by being able to work collaboratively with residents and partners in the city, we can achieve more than we achieve alone.
A strong city needs a strong council that is there as a provider of strong services, a protector of the most vulnerable and a facilitator of a strong vibrant City by the Sea.
Councillor Daniel Yates is the new leader of the Labour administration on Brighton and Hove City Council.
“Working collaboratively with residents” and all that jive is flat-footed when one thinks back ten days to the Full Council where it was apparent that Councillors and residents were aghast at the way in which the Working Group for the Carnegie Library in Hove had been sidelined. Any trust has been dissolved, suspicion and doubt are voiced on many tongues over here. That sidelining was a working definition of special damage, which by its very nature multiplies.
And it appears that Labour recognises the guilt, for, after its waffling part of the debate, it… abstained in the vote.
Dismayed to read that this Brighton councillor has only lived in the city for a dozen years….in Brighon too! We have a Brightoncentric council that cares only about central Brighton and just uses the rest of the city to prop it up. Cannibalising Hove – and at the moment that means Hove Library – is all they can think to do at the moment. Even cleaning Hove Lagoon was just done in a meaninglessly cursory way until the Wish Ward Cllrs pushed back and got it properly dug out. The Library is so badly managed at present that its Grade 2 Listed interior is virtually invisible under the chaos, litter blu-tacked to wals and free-standing junk trashing the place so shelves and books are barely visible.
Sorry Val but I think you may have been speed reading this piece. Nowhere does it say I have only lived in Brighton during my twelve years in the city.
I’m very proud to have lived in Patcham, Hangleton, Portslade, Saltdean and Moulsecoomb during my time – actually. I’ve never lived in Central Brighton – but never say never!
Have you lived in the City for 12 years or worked in the City for that period of time?
I personally think prospective Councillors should have to live in a Ward for 5 years before being able to stand.MPs should have to do exactly the same at tbe very least.
‘As someone who moved into the city only a dozen years ago’
So you have only experienced graffiti, rubbish strewn streets, dumbing down of council owned facilities ie hove library, prince regent swimming, West Pier dereliction, infestation of homelessness, hike, hike & hike of parking charges, congestion – all under a Labour/Green run council
The Conservative (2007) and Green (2011) administrations both told officers to get lost when, yet again, they wanted to close down Hove’s Carnegie Library. It is always Labour which acquiesces in an officer obsession with getting rid of/ dumbing down what should be a splendid Library. Cllr Older said in 2004 to me that she did not understand how anybody could keep a job after the fraudulent “information” we have been given about the Disability Act.
Proof that Brighton Labour group operates as a rogue ‘state’ within a Party that has rejected their neo-liberal ideology wholeheartedly. Daniel Yates was last ‘imposed’ on Lewes labour party to stand as parliamentary candidate during the 2017 general election by the non-democratic labour stasi. He received a reasonable haul of votes from enthusiastic Corbyn supporters in a constituency Labour can never hope to win. Whilst the greens stood down in Lewes, Daniel Yates helped the Tories return to power, continue to carry on blundering their way to a destructive Brexit (clearly now an illegitimate result now the links between Cambridge Analytica and the Tories are plain for all to see) at a cost of a £1bn bung to the terrorist supporting DUP.
The man would sell his own mother for a whiff of power- but will probably make do with Brighton’s public buildings instead.
Such a shame this weekend after pleas from Pro Bono Community Volunteers Daniel as new leader didn’t have the power to activate the Severe Weather Evacuation Protocol.
There was a lot of pressure and the officers rejected his plea for housing (I’ve not seen the email just his words)
Clare Moonan the lead for rough sleeping went AWOL and failed to even open her emails.
Anne Meadows the chair of the housing and new homes committee opened the emails and ignored the pleas.
The homeless in this city already feel abandoned and forgotten. Not a good start!
I do want to say though All the Tories on the housing committee ignored emails and only David Gibson from the greens responded agreeing Emergency Night Shelters should be opened.
Maybe they were all too busy with the reshuffle huh. I am certain we won’t see much change.
“But I stood for election because, just like so many residents, I want to see things improve – services stronger, housing delivered, vulnerable safe and books balanced.” Was this just words?
Errr, Andy Rant … that was Daniel Chapman who stood as Labour PPC for Lewes in 2017.