Town Council chair has a plan, not an empty promise for ‘neglected Dinnington’

Dave Smith, a former miner living in a terraced house in one of the most deprived areas in the ward, is a well-known figure in Dinnington – he has been involved with the town council for almost a decade now.

He is now standing as an independent candidate in the by-election next month – and he has a plan, he told the Local Democracy Service.

However, he has already stood to become a councillor in Rotherham four times and lost four times.

He said: “I put out there the truth and the real problems that Dinnington faces. If I don’t get elected, I’d still carry on fighting for them people – for things I believe in.

“It doesn’t stop me. If they (the other candidates) don’t get elected, they go back into their little corners.

“Since the last election, Labour has disappeared. No one has heard of them until suddenly Labour’s now contesting Rother Valley (the parliamentary seat).

“All of a sudden all of these people keep coming out of the woodwork. When the election is over, they go back to the woodwork.

“I don’t. I’m still here.”

But what are his plans? Mr Smith claimed Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) has “neglected Dinnington for too long now and all the parties have let us down” as they don’t address the real problems.

He added: “I’ve lived for over 40 years. I worked at Dinnington Pit, I live close to one of the most deprived areas – Victoria Street, Leicester Road, Scarsdale Street, Doe Quarry Lane – in the country so I know exactly what people face every day.

“All they are talking (bragging) about is that they’ve got this £12m for the high street. That’s brilliant, that’s great, it’s going to get part of the high street developed, I’m not knocking that.

“But we need a lot more investment than that – in areas in Dinnington that have been left behind.”

Mr Smith said the town council had two plots of land and they (the town council) were working “really hard” to get at least 50 social houses in Dinnington “for specifically Dinnington people”.

He said: “I’m not giving an empty promise; I’m doing that. We’ve got two plots of land as a town council and these plots of land will be used for social housing. Those houses that will be built there will be social low-rent houses.

“Rotherham (RMBC) are saying they’ve got 50 council houses in Dinnington but their housing department doesn’t know where they are.

“They’ve got 6,000 people on their housing list so they could be from Wath, they could be from anywhere in Rotherham.

“Those houses (our houses) should be built by 2025 – early 2025.”

He added Dinnington had lots of issues – from the shortage of social housing, child deprivation, having one of the worst child obesity in the country, ill-health for adults, to the dropping of the life expectancy for males.

Mr Smith said while the big political parties in the area (Labour and the Conservatives) were fighting over who had secured the £12m for the high street, he was here “fighting for real people who have got real problems”.

“They are the people I care about”, he added.

During the campaign, Mr Smith had some harsh words about Alexander Stafford, the Rother Valley MP who is backing the Conservatives’ candidate Julia Hall.

One of his main issues was, he said, that Mr Stafford claimed Ms Hall had had a key role in the £12m the town received from the government.

Mr Smith said: “I’ve got a letter from Alexander Stafford (the Rother Valley MP) thanking me for the hard work I put in to help to get the £12m.

“For him to actually say she’s played a major part in getting that £12m, I hesitate to call it a lie but it’s a lie.”

When asked if this type of campaigning – throwing punches left and right – might make future work in the chamber more difficult, he disagreed.

Mr Smith said: “I can put my politics aside. If it benefits Dinnington, then my politics don’t actually count. What counts is what’s best for this place, for this community.

“If you don’t believe that, then there is no point in being a councillor.

“I don’t do vendettas. I don’t have time for that.”

A by-election in Dinnington was scheduled for July 13 after a (suspended) Conservative councillor Charlie Wooding had to leave town hall (attendance).

Residents in the ward have until midnight on June 27 to register to vote if they are not already on the electoral register and the deadline for new postal votes or to change or cancel existing postal and proxy votes is the day after, at 5pm on June 28.

The deadline for applying to vote by proxy is 5pm on July 5.