Rye will have fewer councillors representing the town following local government re-organisation. Proposals are moving forward to get rid of East Sussex County Council and Rother District Council, replacing them with a new unitary authority from 2028 called – wait for it – East Sussex Council.
At the moment Rye has one county council seat (Dan Bradley) and two district council places (Cheryl Creaser and also Dan Bradley). After all the changes it seems likely there will be just two Rye seats on the new authority.
In a letter to council bosses, Ruth Miller from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said the new East Sussex Council would have 95 seats.
That’s a big drop in councillors. Currently the county council is covered by 50 councillors, with the various district and borough councils having 104 wards, electing about 174 councillors (excluding some of the council seats being lost to Brighton. Don’t ask. Life’s too short).
Its also likely the existing boundaries won’t change, with the new wards based on the current county council maps. So Rye and Eastern Rother will probably have two seats. The boundaries were last redrawn in 2017 and new ones would delay the changes. It may all fall apart anyway, as legal challenges are being planned.
If the changes do go through it will mean less local representation and lots more work for whoever gets elected.
Does that matter? You might think, like Kemi Badenoch, local councillors are only responsible for “parking, sorting out bins.” The Tory leader was defending her party’s decision to allow a former neo-Nazi who was jailed for antisemitic abuse to stand as a councillor in Somerset. She’s very wrong on both counts.
It’s not just potholes and planning either.
Ask your local councillor about the work they do. You’ll be amazed at the range and detail of the concerns they have to deal with, trying to to find answers and solutions often in the face of horrific abuse – both online and in person.
The government will point to the new Mayor of Sussex as part of a solution. As if he or she will care about life in Rye. Our town just won’t be on the agenda when all their big exciting vote-winning plans will be around Brighton or bigger towns like Eastbourne or Worthing. None of the proposed mayoral candidates appear to have much of a connection to Rye either.
What about Rye Town Council (16 councillors) and the parish councils representing local villages (lots)? There’s barely a mention of these hyper-local councils in the latest proposals. Another missed opportunity…
Image Credits: Nick Forman , MLGCAH .