Q & A Response: Garfield Kennedy (Liberal Democrat)

What have you done in office or

1.  

   I want the people of Shepton to be listened to so councillors can act in the best interests of the whole community. For too long, local politicians have told us what's best for them - not what's best for Shepton.

2.  

   Our library was saved by the whole community yet ludicrously the local Tories claim they did it alone! Our Tory County Councillor didn't even turn up at the meeting in Taunton to save the libraries as she promised! I think that threatening Shepton Library with closure was an insult to the town. Many rely of this as the heart of our community - from children doing homework to infants reading their first books to adults including those looking for work via the internet since we have no JobCentre here.

3.  

   I promise to listen and act in the best interests of Shepton. I will always ensure that the voice of the whole of our community is heard loud and clear at County Hall.

elsewhere that acts as an illustration of why Shepton Mallet residents should

give you a vote?

In the 9 months I have served Shepton and its hinterland on Mendip District

Council, I have been involved in a range of complex issues – some in town and

some in the surrounding countryside. 

To my genuine astonishment I discovered many in the community who had

little or no help or response from the Tory councillors in Mendip.

As the only

non-Tory for miles around my workload stretched way beyond the town boundary on

issues that had remained unresolved or ignored by the Tory councillors who

“served” these areas.  These

include finding a balance and resolution to the suitable location of

travellers’ sites, to raising the issue of why Shepton has to have a waiting

list for allotments, to listening to residents’ problems in areas in town where

residents feel completely ignored by the Tories in power.

My career as a producer and director and laterally managing director of a

film and television production company has presented many fast-moving

challenges.  I have investigated

many complex issues including major miscarriages of justice and exposed the

iniquities of politicians in the UK and abroad.  I have found that my background in communications has given

me a skillset that transfers to local politics and remain determined to campaign for fairness and

what is best for our town.

Additionally, for those who are

aiming for re-election or election at a higher level:  What do you think

you can achieve that you haven’t already, and why haven’t you been able to

achieve it in the past?

Many of the problems that we face come from higher up the chain. 

• The threat to our libraries;
• the

  withdrawal of support for the police;

• the ridiculous decision to double charge for

  recycling – once on our Council Tax and again by a raft of stealth taxes at the

  gate of the recycle centre;

• the virtual cutting off of the town before 6pm each

  night and all day at the weekend for those who don’t have the luxury of being

  able to afford a car and rising petrol prices;

• the removal of all arts funding

  (also withdrawn by Mendip);

• massive cuts in staff in children’s services;
• 75%

  cuts in youth services;

• slashed budgets for support of voluntary groups;
• hiring

  £800 a day consultants;

• wasting £300,000 of our money on a Cabinet office that

  will never be used etc, etc, etc, all come from the Tories at County Hall. 

Yet the reduction of this year’s grant

from government that Somerset CC has suffered is a tiny 2%. 

I want to directly challenge these

dogma-driven decisions that are hurting the young, the poor, the elderly – in

fact, every one of us. 

We have ongoing problems with speeding traffic both in town and in the

narrow roads that link us to Wells and Frome.  Some boy and girl racers have been the cause of very bad

accidents in the last few years.  I

will campaign for traffic calming measures and managed crossing points

especially at schools (including Waterloo Road) and call on greater speed

restrictions especially on the Old Wells Road.

Shepton must play its part in attracting green sustainable industries to

Somerset. We sit on a world stage - next to the largest and most successful pop music festival in

the world, and the Bath and West Showground (with its grand plans for the

future).  We have the chance to

embrace a cleaner, greener lifestyle with buildings that are exemplars of

advanced energy saving design, and could with intelligent planning be a

showcase to the world of good practice in renewable industries and new

dwellings.

I have grave concerns about the planned roll-out of over 1300 densely packed

houses on the Shepton Show site. 

It will change the town irreversibly and I will be demanding that we

only allow the town to grow at a rate that allows a balance between industry, services

and homes – with affordable, energy saving designs for the 21st Century.  We must remain a country town, not a

city suburb in the countryside.

Achieving all this will take time – and it’s made all the harder with the

Tories clinging onto power and suppressing all other voices at all 3 levels of local government in Shepton.

How do you think that a level of

public service and standards can be maintained, given the realities of the

budgetary constraints?

Cuts are being made with gusto to frontline services.  I attended the full Somerset County

Council meeting where the Tory councillors grinned from ear to ear as they

triumphantly didn’t respond to a single public plea for restraint or

reconsideration of the £80m of cuts they gleefully voted to impose. 

I would immediately make any essential

cuts over the period recommended by national government which is four years

instead of the three that Cllr Maddock and the Tories in Somerset CC are

imposing on the County. 

I, with others

in Glastonbury and Shepton, worked closely with Tim Coates, the former MD of

Waterstones’ Bookstore, who calculated that all the savings that the Tory

administration could be made without closing a single library of losing any

hours or days of opening. 

Simply

by cutting totally unnecessary book processing and handling and other expensive

layers of administration, and giving the librarians control over their own budgets, all

savings (and amazingly, an additional £200,000) could be delivered without a

single library having to shut its doors or cut its hours. 

Waste in administration and fancy

salaries for Chief Executives are the top targets for savings, not essential

services like libraries, buses, recycling and youth support and help for voluntary groups,

Also given the budgetary pressures,

how do you feel you can contribute to the value we get for our money?

The Tories fought tooth and nail against a unitary authority in Somerset –

to preserve a whole layer of local government at Mendip that is one of the most

unpopular and worst-rated District Councils in England. 

Frightened of losing their tinpot empire, they disingenuously argued

that democracy would be damaged by removing this middle layer of local

government.

Yet in my time at Mendip (and also with my knowledge of

Somerset CC) I see meetings after meetings that are pure shams.  A small group of Tory cronies

pre-decide what is going to be agreed before most meetings take place and the rest

of the Tories vote with unquestioning sheep-like loyalty. 

Mendip is much too small a District Council to be effective,  That’s why it gets bullied into

allowing insensitive schemes like the Townsend Retail Park, where not only is

the council incapable of affording a legal challenge, but where the councillors are

terrified of being sued by powerful developers or multinationals. 

In future, we have to aim for economies of scale where services are shared

with other authorities – and the Tories have been painfully slow in reaching

out for partners.  We do not need a

separate highly paid Chief Executive in every small district authority.  Sadly going unitary (which the Tories

fought off using tens of thousands of pounds of public money to run what was in

effect a Tory political campaign) was the solution to savings tens of

millions. 

Now partnerships and a

certain modesty in letting go of petty power (and reducing

the number of councillors) will deliver better value to the people of Shepton.

Shepton Mallet is often seen to be,

or feels like the poor cousin to Wells, Glastonbury and Frome with less in the

way of facilities .  What, if elected, do you intend to do to redress that

balance?

Fight tooth and nail for Shepton at every opportunity.  Ensure that the WHOLE of our community

is respected and listened to for the first time – and change a culture where

they tell us what they want from us, to one where we tell them what we want

from them.

Our High Street is often referred to

as dead or dying.  What role do you feel you can play in reversing Shepton

Mallet’s fortunes?

For a start, not chase pipedreams – like giving money away without proper

checks and a verified audit trail to failing organisations like BAPA, or

allowing grand one-solution schemes that were supposed by some sort of magic to

solve all the town’s problems (like allowing Tesco’s retail park and its predicable distortion of the town’s

retail offering). 

The High Street

suffers from being by-passed completely so visitors just don’t have a clue how

to get in or park.  Despite Tory lies in their literature and on various (mainly very dull) websites, the

Lib Dem’s manifesto promises to make Shepton’s parking free for a reasonable

period will be delivered. 

It’s pretty straightforward:  Kill off the High

Street with parking charges and shops stay empty and business rate revenue evaporates.

Make the High Street busy and business rates bring in revenue.

Town Street and

the High Street are essentially medieval-scale 2 or 3 story narrow roads.  Therein lies their charm.  A priority must be the resurfacing and upgrading

of the street furniture to a high standard since the general feel and ambiance is

one of decay and lack of confidence in the town’s future. 

The work that was completed in the

upper part of the High Street is already deteriorating rapidly and one has to

question the choice of materials and the management of the scheme, while also shining

a light on the cock-eyed logic of attempting to fix up the top of the town when

the iconic Market Cross area was left to rot.

Shepton needs to offer a range of services and shops that fit with the scale

and ambiance of the existing street pattern.  The decision to exclude a chemist from opening in the High

Street has to be reversed.  Local

produce specialists alongside an artisan community (that is beginning to

coalesce around No.21, Nostalgia, WooHoo, The Art Tree and the new Wells

Emporium point us in a direction for the future. 

Sadly a full range High Street bustling

with the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker belongs to TV shows only

– Tesco’s voracious appetite to ruthlessly compete with anything new on the

High Street put paid to that.

Shepton Mallet is a historic market

town.  What future is there for our market and what part would you

play in it or in making it happen?

The Market should return to its rightful place alongside the Market Cross

and I will explore the possibility to reinstate the Shambles to its original

full length with stall-holders encouraged to sell their wares from traditional

benches. 

Market traders complain

that the cost of coming to Shepton is uncompetitive since not only do they have

to pay £15 for a pitch but they also are hit with hefty charges to park their

vehicles.  A concession for traders

in market day would be easy to arrange and will form part of a revised parking

strategy for Shepton. 

Until such

time that the Market is sufficiently bustling, the traders should be placed around

the Market Square allowing traffic to flow from Great

Ostry and through the High Street - allowing visitors to park in the square. 

I have always questioned the choice of Friday for our Market Day at a

time when few who are working can come. 

I want to see a re-examination of what’s best for Shepton, be it a

Sunday Market or one with additional artisan goods on a regular basis (like the

monthly Sunday Market in Frome).

How do you intend to ensure you

continue to engage with ‘voters’ long after the campaign posters have been

shredded?

I have always been very accessible to those in my district ward (Shepton

West) and in the rest of the town and surrounding countryside.  I instigated a series of surgeries in

the Market – many with our MP Tessa Munt – and arranged with Tessa to make

these a regular event.  I intend to

carry this forward post-election and hope that this is a shared and

co-operative event supported by all those elected next week to serve our town

whatever Party they belong to, or none.

What one single promise can you make

that is specific and to the benefit of Shepton Mallet that you would be happy

to discuss further in a year or two’s time?

I promise to listen and act in the best interests of Shepton.  I will always ensure that the voice of

the whole of our community is heard loud and clear at County Hall and Mendip if I am elected.

Thanks for reading this if especially if you are not a candidate!  I

hope to serve the town with honesty - and with your support, change it

for the better for the good of all.  I can always be contacted either

via my website: www.garfieldkennedy.com or email:

mail@garfieldkenendy.com or phone 345519