Winsford Salt of the Earth

^{* Last updated on 30 Oct 2023}

“Fix Labour's failed Winsford Neighbourhood Plan to ensure income owing to Winsford comes back to be spent in Winsford.”

Cllr Boone has been quick to criticise¹⁾ the WSotE Town Councillors when it comes to fulfilling their pre-election pledges, however many of them appear to have originated either with Cllr Boone, or come from his online mouthpiece the Winsford Residents Association Rodent Army.

It's worth unpacking everything that's been hidden in the wording of this pledge - we need not only to ask the following, but also ask why this pledge is worded as it is:

• Is this Labour's plan?
• Has the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan actually failed?
• To what income does this pledge refer?
• Who, or what organisations, might “owe” this money?
• What do WSotE plan to do “fix” the neighbourhood plan in order to recover “lost” income?

In 2012, under the stewardship of Cllr Brian Clarke (Labour), the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan Steering group, comprised of the Weaver Valley partnership, Winsford Town Council, and the then Tory held Cheshire West and Chester council, began the development of the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan, consulting with local residents and small businesses in order to ensure that the Plan would meet their needs.

The Plan was also intended to be used as a tool to keep national level Tory policies from damaging the town, and is overall quite an aspirational document, something that undoubtedly helped it win Neighbourhood Plan of the Year²⁾ in 2014.

It is clear then, that although Labour Councillors from both town and county undoubtedly had input into its design, the plan is not solely Labour's. It seems a little unfair to lay the blame for it's mere existence entirely at the feet of the local Labour party.

The plan - also hailed as “the largest Neighbourhood Plan to have been put to a referendum in England” - has demonstrably limited the more pernicious tendrils of Tory policy, preventing developers from building houses without any regard for the wishes of locals.

Boone's Rodents frequently question what it is that the Winsford Neighbourhood Plan does for the town, although all these queries generally demonstrate is their extensive ignorance on the subject.

Moving on, then, this pledge likely refers in large part to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which is also prominently featured in WSotE's pledge 16, to “Urgently seek a review of the NIL rating for Community Infrastructure Levy's in Winsford.”.

Increasing the CIL means increasing the amount of money that developers would have to pay the town for local amenities such as schools, playgrounds, or transport improvements. A NIL rating, however, does not mean that Winsford receives no CIL money from CWaC - a point that we will cover in our upcoming critque of Pledge 16.

The last, and most important part of this pledge is WSotE's commitment to “fix” the plan - including recovering lost income. We would love to hear what part(s?) councillors feel need to be fixed, something they were pressed to explain by Cllr Pardoe at Full Council on the 19th Jun 2023³⁾, and how they plan to “recover lost income”, whatever that may mean. We assume they intend not to recover anything, as there is no mechanism by which existing developers can be compelled to pay the levy retroactively.

Perhaps WSotE councillors simply meant that they wish to increase the CIL from NIL? If so, why use 3 pledges to say this when one would suffice? Maybe they were short on ideas at the time?

Overall, this pledge is simply too vague, earning it a WTF rating from us.