West Sussex Votes 2021: Conservatives believe county 'capable of bouncing back' from pandemic
We've been speaking to leader Paul Marshall ahead of Thursday's elections
With West Sussex County Council elections just days away, the leaders of the main political parties have made their pitches for your votes.
The candidates were quizzed on their track record, main campaign policies and what their focus would be on if elected next month.
Polling day is Thursday (May 6th) with all 70 seats up for election.
The Conservatives go into the election holding a majority of seats on the County Council - here's what they are planning to do if they win another term in office:
The past 18 months have been a ‘whirlwind’ for Conservative Paul Marshall since taking over as leader of West Sussex County Council.
He succeeded Louise Goldsmith in October 2019 at a time when the authority had received criticism for the performance of its children’s services, fire and rescue service and transparency of its governance arrangements.
He described it as a ‘pretty tough time’ to take over, but feels significant improvements have been made in all three areas since then.
In children’s services the changes he felt had been ‘quite dramatic’ with an independent commissioner recommending a pause to moving services over to a trust.
Meanwhile an independent advisory panel set up to monitor the progress of the county’s fire and rescue services is no longer needed due to the strides made.
On governance, Mr Marshall set up regular cabinet meetings in public so residents can better understand decisions and the background to them.
One of the other main challenges was ‘unstable leadership’ as there had been a number of interim senior officers in place.
Becky Shaw has been brought in from East Sussex to act as chief executive for both county councils.
Mr Marshall felt this had been key with talented people wanting to come and work for West Sussex now there is stability right at the top.
All this has led to praise from Secretary of State Robert Jenrick in a recent letter.
Reflecting on his time so far as leader Mr Marshall mentioned the progress made on two large capital projects, a new college for Woodlands Meed School in Burgess Hill and a new fire station for Horsham, both now granted planning permission.
But the county council’s biggest challenge has been responding to the pandemic.
He praised staff both at WSCC and the district and borough councils for going over and above in setting up community hubs, which with the assistance of volunteers have provided help, support and signposting for vulnerable residents.
More challenges are still to come with the need to reset West Sussex’s economy and re-skill parts of the workforce.
And as a result of the pandemic the county council has also reset its own priorities.
Along with the usual challenges of improving the condition of West Sussex’s roads, Mr Marshall wants to see a greater alignment of social care with health and mentioned the importance of education, not just primary and secondaries but also colleges providing apprenticeships and skills.
Improvements to the A27 at Arundel were ‘critical’ while he was also keen to see upgrades to the route advance at both Chichester and Worthing.
He said climate change would be another key focus if the Conservatives return to power after May, especially providing more infrastructure for electric vehicle charging as would rolling out superfast gigabit broadband.
Post-pandemic, Mr Marshall believes West Sussex is ‘extremely capable of bouncing back in a really positive way’, adding:
“But we need the skills, training, infrastructure and affordable homes to provide those jobs and accommodation at the right price.”
The direct cost of Covid to the county council was around £84million and while this has been repaid by government they were continuing to lobby through West Sussex MP’s for fairer long-term funding.
On the idea of creating a unitary authority, Mr Marshall has agreed with his West Sussex counterparts at district and borough level to wait for a White Paper on the subject to provide the framework for any conversations to take place.
Personally he thinks unitaries are a ‘good model’.
He described a ‘real sense of achievement’ at the county council with its staff not only keeping business as usual going, but also providing support systems during the pandemic as well as making significant improvements in the three key areas.
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