Midsomer Norton Town Council needs to focus on the challenges of the future, rather than the achievements of the past, if it is to reconnect with the people it purports to represent. I was proud to play my own small part in the Campaign for an Independent Midsomer Norton Town Council, led by Chris Watt and Paul Myers, so it gives me no pleasure to see the institution I fought to create, ape so many of the distasteful characteristics of the institution it replaced.
The challenges of Covid and the Cost of Living Crisis mean this
community is experiencing socio-economic changes at an unprecedented rate. For
me, Midsomer Norton needs to recognise and then address the economic, social
and political challenges it currently faces.
Economically, the decline of the High Street is an obvious challenge,
yet this isn’t a situation unique to Midsomer Norton. The loss of retail chains
like Argos and M&Co is as hard to take as much loved independent traders,
like Docky’s Delicatessen[1].
Yet what is harder to take is the winding down of the Chamber of Commerce, an
organisation I had the honour to represent alongside dedicated community
leaders like Paul Myers and David Evans.
Once the business community finds it voice, political
leaders need to understand how the interests of all businesses, not just
retail, can best be served. Much has been made over the years about the
renaissance of Frome[2],
but regeneration is also taking place in Keynsham[3]
and Kingswood in South Gloucestershire[4].
These success stories need to provide the reassurance that the future is worth
fighting for. Midsomer Norton already has a High Street Action Zone[5]
project totalling over £2m of investment. This opportunity needs to be grasped,
not squandered.
The evening economy is the link between the economic and
social challenges faced by the town.
Midsomer Norton benefits from a vibrant collection of pubs and
restaurants, encouraging people from across the Somer Valley to enjoy a night
out in the town. When Midsomer Norton Town Council started, the Community
Alcohol Partnership[6]
and its Street Marshal initiative delivered real support to the entertainment
industry in the town, bringing traders, the police, the marshals, Town Council
and B&NES together to understand the challenges being faced and make the
most of the resources at their disposal.
The critical social change experienced within Midsomer
Norton is the significant housing developments created over the past decade,
with the White Post developments[7]
continuing to expand the footprint of the town beyond the B&NES boundary.
These developments don’t just increase the strain on local infrastructure like
schools, doctors and roads, they change the nature of a community that once had
its roots firmly in the Somerset coalfields, to a dormitory town, with a
transient population, largely commuting out to access the jobs market in Bath
and Bristol.
The challenges Midsomer Norton faces haven’t stood still,
they’ve evolved in a way none of us could have envisaged when we pressed
B&NES for the Community Governance Review in 2010. Problems with
anti-social behaviour, a declining High Street and the ability to
sympathetically integrate housing development into the community remain, yet
what has changed is that the Town Council appears to have lost its focus on
addressing these problems, sleep walking into a virtually ceremonial role.
The real achievement of the campaign for an independent Midsomer
Norton Town Council was that it brought people together from across the Town. Local
politicians, commercial leaders, the sporting community and cultural interests
found a common voice and that is what must happen after May’s elections, if the
new Town Council is to overcome it’s own challenges and tackle that real issues
that matter in the Town.
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