By Jimmy Young

After being inundated with one email asking where TCW was in our June edition, your beloved columnist has spent the intermediate months regretting not placing a “TCW Will Return” notice in the last print issue, to reassure avid readers that the Mayor of Wymondham hadn’t strapped him to a table with a laser slowly sweeping up to his knackers.

No, even the man with the golden puns needs a break from time to time. But now TCW’s back, armed with his explosive ballpoint pen ready to cover a summer of local democracy goings-on. You didn’t think I’d ever stop did you?

Diamonds are forever.

Nobody Did It Better

Back in May, local elections meant TCW once more had to dust off the homemade swing-o-meter he keeps in his shed, as he stayed up long into the early hours awaiting Wymondham’s local election results.

If only someone had let poor old TCW know the counting only started the next day…

Sadly, none of the Town Councillors who stood for Norfolk County Council in various seats were successful. But TCW did at least get a quantum of solace from some of their fantastic leaflets that came through his front door.

One particularly enjoyable effort came courtesy of Cllr Dave Roberts (Lib Dem), who has voted at least three times to stop Town Council meetings being streamed/recorded on YouTube.

The camera-shy candidate’s leaflet told voters he believed councillors should be “visible” and that he knew the importance of “being transparent”,

Pass me my irony-o-meter. Still, transparent and visible. Like a sort of local government frogspawn then.

Results-wise, former darling-of-the-TCW column Cllr Robert Savage (Con) beat off a Reform rival to keep his Wymondham Central seat. But in the two bits of Wymondham that belong to other electoral divisions, Silfield and the Rugby Club estate, it was Big Nige’s boys who won the day.

Perhaps understandably neither of the two new Reform County Councillors managed to attend the Town Council’s first post-election meeting in May. There must be a huge volume of tasks they will be busy with.

The boats cruising along the Yare near County Hall in Trowse aren’t going to stop themselves, you know.

Double ‘Oh Heavens!’

July saw the first appearance at a Town Council meeting of new ~Spectre Reform UK County Councillor Gary Douglas-Beet, who covers the Silfield end of town, the bald-headed 59-year old receiving all the warmth of welcome from Town Councillors of Blofeld gatecrashing M’s leaving do.

“I’m quite a tough cookie”, Blofeld announced, stroking a cat on his lap.

He won’t mind this section then...

“A bit Marmite, because I shoot from the hip and say everything as it is...[]...I’m quite strongly opinionated.”

And the tough Marmite cookie had been looking to help a culinary business in his area, Station Bistro, that had been badly affected by the near-constant road closures on Station Road.

“I went to see [the owner] Brendan and I said ‘look I’m going to fight your corner.’” Blofeld regaled the group, before revealing his detail-oriented plan: “I’ve requested a meeting with Taily Whimper, their construction company”.

“We had a meeting with Taylor Wimpey about a month ago to discuss these matters”, a stirred but not shaken Cllr Roly Frosdick (Lib Dem) iced, pointedly correcting the spoonerism.

“So if there’s something you want to help with, I will give you the things that came out that the public wanted to see.”

Blofeld continued: “I’ve had a few people ask me to try and push for a shorter timespan on…”

“YEAH that’s exactly what we’ve been doing with Taylor Wimpey” Cllr Frosdick interrupted, later deadpanning: “I can brief you with what we’ve done, if you have a better outcome.”

“Anything I can do from my side, I think we’re all in this together. It’s not you and us.” Blofeld confidently closed the conversation, without letting out so much as a taily whimper.

Yeesh. These two are going to be fun to watch. TCW’s not seen pent up tension like this since he was temping in Moneypenny’s office back in the 1960’s.

Octoposty

With Town Councillors already having launched their own interdimensional postal service last year with their ‘Letters To Heaven’ box in Wymondham’s cemetery, their attention in summer turned to the much more terrestrial matter of hoping a Post Office in the town centre would open again.

Local MP Ben Goldsborough Goldfinger (Lab) had launched a parliamentary petition to say a Post Office needed to be “put back on our high street”, after counters in Jarrolds, The White Hart and OneStop had closed one after another in recent years.

Presumably due to their massive popularity and the scorchingly lucrative returns for the people running them...

In a welcome boon to the coffers of Her Majesty’s Postal Service, the bankbencher had written letters to households across town to publicise his petition to bring up the issue in parliament - even if the legislative body has no say over where Post Office Ltd place their branches, nor the ability to magic up someone to run the thing.

Never let reality get in the way of a good campaign. And besides, maybe MI6 has a secret department that coerces people into becoming postmasters against their will that only Mr Goldfinger knows about. Never say never.

Either way, it’s great to see our elected representatives taking the time to give the impression they have any influence over anything. And with elections on the horizon, Town Councillors have been getting in on the act too, helping to take the MP’s prayer to the postal gods door to door.

A For-Your-Eyes-Only email from a Town Council employee to councillors asked “Could you please give me an update on how many signatures you have for the above petition from each of your wards? I would like to give Ben [Goldfinger] an update on how many signatures we have.”

But Cllr Lucy Nixon (Lib Dem) had a confession: “Suzanne and I have not been out in South Wymondham yet due to the extremely hot weather.”

Most of it will go unreported.

Local authority journalism has been hollowing out for years. Reporters who once covered town, city and county halls have been cut, consolidated, or moved on to easier beats. The result is that the people running your council, spending your money, and shaping your streets are largely operating without scrutiny.

That is what Council Watch is here to change.

We will cover local authorities and nothing else. We will investigate financial misdeeds and procurement failures. We will use data to hold councils to account on their own numbers. We will report regularly on the decisions and people that matter. We are independent, and we will publish what we find.

This is a particularly important moment to be doing this. Councils across Britain are going through the biggest reorganisation in fifty years. New authorities are being created, old ones abolished, and significant power is shifting around. We will be watching.

We will be introducing our team very soon. In the meantime, if you have a tip, a document, or a story you think we should be looking at, get in touch.

Welcome aboard.

The Council Watch Team