The election in the North Cotswolds

Some very strong common themes emerged.
NB West England Bylines takes a keen interest in the election but is not advocating voting for any any one party.

1)

It’s home to Britain’s oldest pub (so they say…), a church tower scarred by cannon balls, silk spinning, Hawker Hurricanes, an alternative ‘Gunpowder Plot’, and the discovery of an almost complete Proceratosaurus. At its widest, it stretches from the Severn’s banks to the Cotswold heartlands. And the new North Cotswolds constituency combines diverse communities, from expanding settlements south of Cheltenham to Domesday Book survivors like my home town of Minchinhampton.

Over the past months, I’ve loved getting to know my part of Gloucestershire better. But what I’ve been most struck by is how much brings these diverse communities together, and the common issues that I’ve heard on doorsteps, from Hardwicke to Stow-on-the-Wold.

Perhaps no surprise that the NHS is at the front of people’s minds. As a County Councillor, I read the Committee reports confirming that Gloucestershire’s GP waits are the longest in the country. Lives are put at risk by the response times of the South West Ambulance Trust. The North Cotswolds is a dental desert too – when writing this, a single practice in the constituency takes new NHS patients without referral. Fixing all this will need honesty about the scale of the problem, and commitment to the huge investment required.

Everyone needs a safe, warm, affordable home, and that’s a challenge where tourist prices and rising bills put great pressure on family budgets. Local councils are working hard to revive empty homes and steer development towards brownfield, but sometimes we will need to build new affordable, energy-efficient homes to accommodate our growing population. What’s vital is that what’s built matches what our communities actually need, so that need can be satisfied with minimal land use. And that decent infrastructure – public transport, sewage, schools, green spaces – is prioritised over developer super-profits. We need a change in government to achieve that shift in focus.

Few would associate the North Cotswolds with deprivation, but Coventry University’s ‘Hidden Hardship’ report exposed the reality of rural poverty – both difficult to identify and address, it’s impacting lives, young and old. There’s stigma and shame in having a low income in an area associated with conspicuous wealth. There’s a reluctance to ask for help, yet such is the need, foodbanks are still busy at their pop-up sessions across the constituency. Isolation, lack of public transport, high rents, and limited employment make the North Cotswolds a difficult place to be poor.

There are plenty of challenges to tackle here. But something else that unites many in this new constituency is a love for the landscape we live in, and a desire to promote nature’s recovery. Whether it’s calling for an end to river pollution, calling for more profitable environmental land management schemes for our farmers, or supporting the vital work of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, it’s been really heartening. If nature thrives, we all thrive. And whatever happens on 4^th July, I hope the new North Cotswolds constituency does have a thriving future, supported by an MP that does justice to this place we all love.

Cllr Chloe Turner,
Green Candidate for North Cotwolds

2)

As someone who has lived in the North Cotswolds for 35 years I see everyday evidence of services which are broken and stretched to the limit.

Many people crave change for that reason.

Here are the main issues as I see them:

1. NHS and social care: as the Cabinet Member for Health on Cotswold District Council I am acutely aware of two things – firstly how NHS and social care staff do an amazing job and secondly how what we expect from them is now unrealistic. Why unrealistic? Because there are not enough of them to satisfy the complex needs of an ageing population and demand far outstrips capacity. Government must act robustly to change this. It is beyond breaking point and extra staff must keep pace with demand. Ambulances arriving on time, GPs you can see quickly, nurses, consultants – all are needed. The explosion in mental health issues is another consequence of broken services.
2. Hidden hardship – for what is deemed to be an affluent area there are too many people suffering with the cost of living crisis. Energy bills, not coping with food prices and residents often having more than one job – this is what hidden hardship looks like with massively increased use of foodbanks in our area and charities and councils doing what they can to help with cuts in resources. Help with energy bills is needed along with a change of approach which makes sure people really do have a proper safety net to cope.
3. Sewage scandal – the regular and disgusting pollution of our rivers by the water companies is the legacy of Government not holding the privatised companies to account. Locally, the River Coln had 2000 hours of raw sewage pumped into it last year. It made national headlines. This tragic situation must change through robust legislation and by moving the water companies from private to public interest organisations. People are rightly outraged by it – a mess amidst the beauty of Gloucestershire

I have hope that we can fix these things, but it will take a lot of hard work to get there.

Cllr Paul Hodgkinson
Liberal Democrat candidate for the North Cotswolds

The other candidates are as follows:

Jean Blackbeard (Independent)
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative) (incumbent – Cotwolds constituency)
Anna Mainwaring (Labour)
Jason Preece (Reform UK)

Postscript (16 July 2024): In the event the election was won by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Con) with 17,426 votes, against 14,069 for Paul Hodgkinson (LibDem)

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