I have previously written about the lengths that Crawley’s Labour Councillors go to in order to avoid scrutiny.  Unfortunately, last week’s Full Council meeting at Crawley Borough Council showed that nothing has changed.

There are only five of these meetings a year, in February, March, July, October and December, where there is a 30-minute time segment for councillors to ask questions of the council leader and cabinet members, as well as chairs of committees.

Crawley Borough Council’s membership is 25 Labour and 11 Conservative councillors, meaning there is a large Labour majority.  All eight members of the council’s cabinet, all five committee chairs plus the mayor and deputy mayor, are all Labour councillors.  Experience shows that Crawley residents can only rely on Conservatives councillors to hold the Labour administration to account.

Frustratingly, Labour’s modus operandi at councillor question time is to intentionally waste time during the five half-an-hour periods during a whole year that they are required to answer questions.  At last week’s Full Council meeting, Conservative councillors asked questions of topics of importance to our town.

We asked about possible incentives and sanctions to bring back empty shops into use?  We asked if the Labour council will stand up to their own government wanting to concrete over the countryside when it comes to potential huge housing development west of Ifield?  We asked if the council will look into the viability of making its sheltered housing for older residents feel safer by installing video doorbell entry systems?  We asked if efforts will now be made to find an appropriate way for Crawley to recognise Gareth Southgate given his achievements as England manager, and we asked if they felt there could be any risk to people and property in Crawley given the Labour’s government’s plan to release prisoners less than halfway through their sentences?

In-between our pertinent questions, we had the most awful display of intentional Labour timewasting, with ‘questions’ asked that had very long prepared answers, obviously being read out word-for-word, including the reading out a council press release issued that day that we had all already seen.

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

24th July 2024