News from County Councillor Marianne Overton MBE
Cllr Marianne Overton – Newsletter February 2025
Wishing you all the very best!
This is my personal newsletter to let you know what I am doing on your behalf and to keep in touch with you. Let me know if I can help you.
Solar on Roofs, not farmland!
Residents have been deeply upset by proposals to change the nature of our countryside with industrial steel, silicon and glass, industrialising an area greater than the size of Lincoln. A 32 acre field less than a mile from Navenby is planned to house a huge substation, connecting to vast Lithium battery storage units.
Thank you for your brilliant support to date. Covering thousands of acres of our farmland for 60 years with soon-outdated solar industry, while 630,000 acres of commercial roofs lie vacant, is just daft. The money comes from our pockets in a life-time of raised electricity bills on long-term contracts to profit foreign or global companies, leaving no capacity for new and better options.
We are up against a huge machine and need every bit of help we can get! We have succeeded on other seemingly very difficult applications before, and we need to do it again. If this was really about renewables, the Government would require all new build to be energy efficient, all commercial roofs to have solar and a bigger drive for insulation so we can use less. Industry should be on industrial land, wind offshore and solar on roofs, car parks, railways etc.
The Cliff Villages Solar Action Group (CVSAG) is meeting fortnightly with a very impressive team. Our public meeting had a full hall with around 300 people in the main hall at Navenby and a big turn-out at Leadenham and Welbourn this week. Thank you very much indeed for signing the petition, writing letters and donating to enable professional support. Can you help a little? www.cvsag.orgThe petitions are being submitted to both County Council and District Councils and we are gathering a thousand letters for Ed Miliband. I also have a parliamentary meeting on March 10th and am working through my national channels as well, and the National Solar Alliance.
New Mayor for Lincolnshire
Elections on May 1st for your Lincolnshire County Councillors will go ahead. At the same time, you will vote for a single new Mayor for the whole of Greater Lincolnshire, that is 1.1m people spread over 7,000 square kilometres. The Mayor and small group of party political councillors get to be a “strategic Authority” making decisions on planning, housing, transport, skills, the economy and tackling climate change. These are currently done by our District and County Councils. If you thought our District was hard to influence, then how about something ten times bigger!
In some other areas, the District and Counties are already dissolved and a new layer, a principle authority created instead. Thus it remains two tier, but the areas covered are a great deal bigger and decision-making that much more remote. The new councils are expected to manage half a million people, so two for the whole of Greater Lincolnshire. Where this has occurred, Councillors have such large areas to manage that they lose their connection with the public and we lose democracy, reflected in poorer turnouts and lack of accountability.
I am working flat out on this nationally, with a huge amount of discussion at all levels.
Local services need local decisions.
Money for Local Services
Nationally with the Local Government Association, where I am Vice Chairman, we have been making the case for better funding for local services. We laid out the extra pressures which came to £4.6bn over two years and the Government responded with half of it, leaving a gap.
This week, the Government agreed how much of our tax that they were devolving back to Lincolnshire for local services. Lincolnshire County Council is expected to raise tax by 2.99%, less than the 5% allowed and taking £10m or less from reserves. Proposals are here. Lincolnshire had a little more than expected from Government this year.
North Kesteven is expected to rise by 2.76% or £4.95 on a band D house, taking the total to £164 for the whole year.
There are two grant funds for NK; 1) A Rural Business Grant Scheme of £450,000 in total, to support capital investments, including rural start-ups, visitor economy and manufacturing supply chains, hospitality and more. 2) a Rural Community Grant Scheme of almost £300,000 in total which will support projects including the creation and enhancement of blue and green community spaces, community renewable energy projects and more.
North Kesteven will be making the leisure centres more energy efficient and still have a £1m Climate response reserve in hand.
Flooding
Thank you to our Parish Councils and residents who have worked with me, Highways and Anglian Water to bring improvements in the system, or things would have been much worse in the most recent rains. As it is, just on one day in January, Lincolnshire had 126 reports of flooding, including 53 homes and 14 people stuck in cars. Floodline: 0345 988 1188 I spoke at the Flood and Drainage Committee in Lincoln, raising the slow recovery from previous years. Brant Broughton, Welbourn, Aubourn and Haddington have had some improvements made, with more to do. Section 19 reports are produced by the County Council on the cause of flooding in each case and the recommended actions.
Noth Hykeham Relief Road
The County Council has published the legal orders for the new road, in case Westminster does agree the funding after all. The County Council seeks to purchase 470 acres needed for the road and to make changes to the road network to accommodate the new road.
There are 12 objections including the National Grid, Network Rail and businesses with whom there was insufficient negotiation. The Department for Transport will hold a public Inquiry between April 14-May 26. Construction of the new relief road was expected to start in late 2025 and open in 2028 at a cost of around £200m.
Dodgy Driving
The Police now accept private videos from the public and they contact the culprits, 2000 last year alone! Keep safe!
National Conference
I was delighted to host the National Conference for Independent and smaller party councillors from across England and Wales. Our councillors have increased in number and influence to almost 20% of all councillors, in addition to the majority of Parish Councils who remain loyal to their residents and entirely non-partisan! Independents lead in 64 councils and are in the leading team of a quarter of all councils.
Thinking of helping or being a councillor?
The next big conference is in Lincoln at the White Hart on Saturday February 22nd. Want to come along? Please give me a call or text.
With no party instructions, our members are known for listening to residents, thinking about the issues and working hard to achieve the best possible outcomes for our residents. Meanwhile I am running Saturday noon briefing sessions online for candidates. Call me to join in.
Local Government provides or influences almost all local services for residents, employing 1.3 million people on an annual budget of £127bn, in England this year. The Local Government Association where I am Vice Chairman, is the voice of Local Government. We take your voices right into the heart of decision-making.
Cyber-safe
Beware of any unexpected e-mails inviting you to click on a link. Please do not click on it! The links in this bulletin take you to the official websites.
Green hospitality
Visit Lincolnshire has produced a toolkit for you to use to make sure that you are not missing out on any savings to your business and the planet! Tourism relies on people wanting to visit our attractive rural area and I know I am not the only one working to keep it that way – from litter-picking to defending against poor developments.
There is also a checklist for churches here!
Want to keep in touch?
If you know anyone else who would find this newsletter useful, please suggest they drop me an email here. I write a weekly bulletin which you can find here. You can also keep in touch with social media. @overtonmarianne
or facebook
Best wishes,
Marianne
Marianne Overton MBE
Working together for people and planet