Sefton Smug Satisfaction ?

The Sefton full council meeting this week featured a debate on the 50th Anniversary of Sefton Council with a motion put down by the Labour Party administration congratulating the Council.

Parts of it congratulating hard working staff were a matter of agreement,  but opposition leader on Sefton, Liberal Democrat Cllr. John Pugh wanted the Council to do rather more than give itself a pat on the back. 

Cllr.Pugh, himself a former Leader of the Council and Southport MP, wanted the council not to bathe in self-satisfaction but recognise that Sefton is a set of very different natural communities- Southport, Formby, Bootle, Maghull and Crosby- all of whom once controlled their own destiny and who are not best served by existing structures. 

He called for the council to look into devolving services and importantly more local decision-making so councillors elected by a particular community had more say in what happened in that community.

“ Sefton is a strange beast created by civil servants in London with inherent tensions and we should recognise that and address the issues that result.”, he said. 

"You cannot force an identity on people and make people proud Seftonians. No politician with sense campaigns with the slogan “Stand up for Sefton ! ”. 

It’s a municipal unit serving proud but different communities and simply lumping them all together weakens the focus we need on the specific problems each community has.

The Leader of the Council, Cllr. Marion Atkinson, claimed at the Council meeting that Sefton’s last attempt to give councillors more say over their own communities - — area committees-  had been abolished by the Labour administration for cost reasons, but there is a real cost in having decisions taken by councillors unfamiliar with the area their decisions impact on.”

Southport , now facing another carve up by the Boundary Commission and losing Ainsdale, has suffered more than most from this lack of focus. All seaside towns like Bournemouth and Brighton that have bucked the trend of decline have for decades controlled their own affairs and that is not a co-incidence.

 The least Sefton can do is give Southport councillors the capacity to make their some of their own decisions for the town, subject to full council approval. Welding Southport councillors into a unit, regardless of party, working for Southport’s good would be a powerful force for change and a better way forward than simply voicing smug satisfaction about the status quo. "

Cllr Pugh’s amendment was defeated on Thursday with all Labour members voting against.