"We can’t afford Councillor Houghton’s leadership any longer"

This letter sent to the Star was written by Mike Smith, Park Grove, Barnsley, S70
Julie DoreJulie Dore
Julie Dore

Arthur Baker’s excellent analysis of Sheffield Council leader Julie Dore could have been written with Councillor Dore’s name replaced with Barnsley’s leader, Steve Houghton. Both share “institutional indifference” as evidenced here in the Penny Pie Park scandal with the loss of more than 60 mature trees and the ludicrous plan to situate a children’s park in the middle of a busy roundabout.

Equally, Houghton’s forcing of the removal of the elderly and disabled rail concession saw these groups’ welfare, health and wellbeing plummet, a removal supported by five Sheffield councillors and Julie Dore as leader.

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With the loss of £16m (£90m across the county), on a failed broadband scheme without one resignation, we in Barnsley have watched helplessly as greenbelt has been redesignated, £20m spent on new offices while 300,000 pensioners lost their concession for want of £40,000, £60,000 spent on Houghton’s vision of a halo and an Italianate hill village. The new Civic included a £35,000 clock no one could tell the time from and was broken for months before anyone realised. And now a town centre redevelopment Councillor Houghton promised in 2016 would cost no more than £50m but currently stands at £180m with many of the market stallholders having to take protest action because of the extremely expensive rents.

£250,000 a year on free food and drink, £1.5m supporting absentee HMO landlords, two mayoral vehicles, a £1m number plate, £10,000 on gold medallions. Councillor Houghton’s priorities and choices time and again fail to deal with the welfare of our citizens. We can’t afford Councillor Houghton’s leadership any longer.

Unlike Sheffield we have not been able to set up a petition to force a referendum to change the council governance. That is about to change.

Given the scale of Labour’s losses at the last election, and whether Councillor Houghton retains his seat or not, the people of Barnsley will be given the opportunity that’s It’s our City has given to people of Sheffield – a referendum to change to a committee system.

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