This is an interesting article, which talks about a decision from a Conservative Whittlesey Councillor to vote against a road infrastructure scheme in March. I would bet your bottom dollar the Cllr involved plans to use it at some point in the future to say that he argued the case for investment in Whittlesey at the Combined Authority. We should be clear, that is not what he did. What he has done is made it even more difficult for the Mayor of the Combined Authority to invest in Fenland and therefore, Whittlesey. What it also does is reinforce the fact that the Council has not yet dealt with a significant issue from its past.
This investment in March infrastructure has been planned for years. In the same way that Kings Dyke Bridge was planned for years and the same way that the Whittlesey Relief Road will be years in the planning if and when it moves forwards. The plans for the March scheme will have come about because of significant time and effort from Councillors, but especially from Officers, probably at Fenland District Council, The Combined Authority (which is the Mayor's office) and the County Council. That time and effort basically means YOUR council taxes. There will have been loads of briefings to members of the Combined Authority, including Fenland Councillors and from what I can see here, there is no sense that this issue has been raised before - in fact the sense I get is that the Cllr involved did not act with the support of the Leader of the Council, rather he took a 'lone wolf' decision. I may be wrong in this, but I suspect not.
Anyway the point here is that if this project does not go ahead, the money will not suddenly be redistributed around Fenland; it will go back into the Combined Authority's coffers to use on other projects, perhaps elsewhere in Cambridgeshire. If it is Government money it may even go back to the treasury's coffers. It is money that will be lost to Fenland, not reallocated.
Given that this is the case, if you were at the Combined Authority and were looking at investment options, why would you invest in Fenland when the Council can't be relied upon to even be consistent? It has made the life of decent Fenland Councillors more difficult.
When I was a Councillor previously, Fenland had two peer reviews carried out into their planning service. Neither of them were very good, and both raised what was basically the same issue, which is that Fenland was suffering because of the inability of Councillors to make decisions for the whole of Fenland because of unnecessary competition between the market towns. The end result is that everyone loses out; the alternative is a 'rising tide raises all ships' approach. It seems like nothing has changed.
This debacle shows once again what a poorly led Council Fenland is - it is why a big part of my election campaign is to highlight the fact that you deserve better. My approach will be very different. I will always argue the case for Whittlesey, but I will also support decisions that are good for other parts of Fenland. I want to make it easy for people to invest here, not harder.
The Leader of the Council now needs to make it clear whether he supports the decision made by Cllr Haq Nawaz or if he was acting on his own initiative. My guess is he will say nothing, but the plans will come back again in a short while and will be nodded through. That in itself will be evidence enough.