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Mark Bee outlines the case for localism in Suffolk – and implores the secretary of state to leave Lowestoft where it belongs. Lowestoft: hardworking and community minded Illustration: Rod Waters Lowestoft is a wonderful town in a great county. The people there are hardworking, community-minded and modest about their achievements. Most Mondays they are going about their daily business, starting a new week and getting on with their lives. So when last week I was joined by hundreds of Lowestoft citizens in the town centre proclaiming themselves ‘Suffolk and proud', as part of a popular protest against the latest wheeze of the Boundary Committee, it brought home to me the real point of local councils, and why we should be bothered about the current review of local government in Suffolk and other parts of England. It is far too easy to see this as an arid argument over boundaries, as yet another spat between county and district councils or as party politics by other means. What the Lowestoft protest brought home to me is that this is one of the most important issues facing counties like Suffolk – certainly in my lifetime – and one that will make the difference between good or bad local government in the county for decades to come. The bottom line for local residents is not about who wins and who loses, and which councillors will be in charge; it is about jobs and roads, good schools and living in a great environment. Importantly, it is about residents having a say and a real influence over the future of their local towns and villages. This is localism in the real world. It is why I and the leaders of St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath councils stand shoulder to shoulder to reject the ill-informed, ill-considered and unworkable nonsense of the current Boundary Committee proposals for the county. I have yet to meet anyone locally or nationally who thinks that moving Lowestoft to Norfolk makes any historic, economic or social sense, or frankly that it will ever happen. And the idea of crunching east and west Suffolk together in one Suffolk Rural unitary shows that Max Caller and his colleagues have a tin ear for the realities of life on the ground in Suffolk. As for the proponents of one council for Suffolk (in other words a giant unitary for something like 450,000 residents), they are clearly a couple of wards short of a democratic deficit if they think this would be anything other than out of touch and remote from its citizens, as well as prohibitively expensive to run. This has nothing to do with an aversion to change or an arrogant belief that our two-tier system is perfect and above challenge. The argument behind unitary local government, and the efficiencies and service improvements it can bring, is a strong one, and the plan to make urban Ipswich and Felixstowe a unitary in its own right – the New Haven solution – also adds up, albeit that the people of Felixstowe may have other views. What we are proposing – a simple split between west and east Suffolk alongside New Haven – is no major revolution but a practical Suffolk approach to the challenges that the world and the Government are giving us. We are being urged by the Government to provide leadership of place, devolve power to the lowest level, give even more opportunities for local people to run things and get involved. We must also now address the issues of the global downturn and climate change affecting us all. So, Hazel and Max, give us the chance to get on with it. Suffolk is not just one place but a series of places spread across a wide geographical area with clear differences in the problems they face and the services they need. Each has a wholly different sense of place. While one part of the county looks to the economic powerhouse of Cambridge, for example, with the benefits and demands that brings, the other has no such ties, looking as it does to the sea, to its rural and coastal communities and to a whole range of different challenges. The real answer – and the one that the current round of public consultation must soon reveal – is that local government must be kept local and that such a straightforward ambition has clear public support. Just ask the good people of Lowestoft. Mark Bee is leader of Waveney DC in Suffolk.

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WHITEHALL

We want to stay local

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