Monday 7th March 2011

Chesterfield Borough Council today welcomed the town's third Government Minister in two weeks, this time Government's Parlimentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Minister, Andrew Stunell OBE MP.


Cllr Ray Russell (left), Leader of Chesterfield Council met with Local Government Minister, Andrew Stunell OBE MP during his visit to Chesterfield

Mr Stunell met with Cllr Ray Russell, Leader of the Council, and Huw Bowen, Chief Executive at the Council, discussing some of the innovative partnerships the Council has entered into, leading to savings across the budget, as well as the Council Tax freeze and failure of Auto Windscreens.

This was followed by a tour of the town centre where Mr Stunell was able to see how, despite the current economic climate, it has one of the lowest vacancy retail outlet figures in the region and continues to have a thriving indoor and outdoor market.



After touring the town centre, Mr Stunell commented: "Chesterfield is a great example of what can be achieved in local government through sound financial management and strong leadership.

"The lively and vibrant town centre is clearly the hub of the local economy and community, and it’s obvious that Chesterfield is going from strength to strength. The council is playing a key role in this working well with local businesses to secure a positive and profitable future for all involved."

Cllr Ray Russell, Leader of Chesterfield Borough Council said: "We were proud to show Mr Stunell round the town today and to have the opportunity to discuss with him the Council’s financial position and the successful approaches we’ve taken to delivering services for local people."

We spoke to Mr Stunell ahead of his town centre tour and he told us why he felt Chesterfield was such an important council role model, "I've come to see how Chesterfield Borough Council is getting on, what their reaction is to the financial situation - the country currently borrows £400m a day, so there is less money to spend as we have to reduce what we're spending and increase our income. Chesterfield is making a really good job of it."

He added that he was impressed with what he had seen so far, "This is a council not losing jobs, protecting services and council tax isn't going up, it's a perfect match for people who live in the town and a credit to the council and the work they have done over the years.

"They're in a sound position now and they're being imaginative and creative about how things are done. They're getting the benefit of that now and so is everyone else in Chesterfield."

He also took time out to talk about the upcoming elections saying there is a, "big difference between national and local voting - people need to look at the services that councils have provided and the results they have delivered for Chesterfield. That way they'll make their judgement when they go into the polling booth."

He also stressed that communities and councils like Chesterfield have a big part to play in delivering the Government's Big Society project, "It's a large centralized country now, you can hardly blow your nose without getting permission from Whitehall.

"It's important for places like Chesterfield to get power and decision making back into local communities so that you can be in a much better position to decide what their priorities are for housebuilding, roads and services than to waiting for Whitehall to tell them."

One other thing that residents in Chesterfield will be voting on come May is the referendum on fair votes. We asked Mr Stunell how the outcome of that could affect people in Chesterfield.

He admitted he was looking forward to the vote, "I'm big in favour of the Fair Votes campaign and hope everyone will vote yes - it would mean that MP's will have to work harder to make you understand what they are standing for, make MP's work harder too.

"It's about making sure that you get polls which work for the whole country, and making sure that the work we do benefits the whole country. We sometimes don't get the Governments we want and the polls produce some strange results under the present voting system."

And finally we asked about how life in Government felt, "It's challenging and the financial situation dominates everyone's thinking. There's a job to be done - and we're doing some hard stuff - but we're doing some good stuff - and it's a job that needs to be done."

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