It continues to be good to see how the community of the town and district have come together to campaign for Goole hospital to be retained and enhanced rather than closed. It doesn’t make any sense to close the hospital when capacity is an issue and a key objective is to get waiting lists down, even aside from it being better for patients and their relatives if local people are treated locally rather than 30-50 miles away unless they heed very specialised care.
A frequent comment from those who want to keep the hospital is that decision makers in the joint hospital trusts and Integrated Care Board are being secretive and not listening to people from Goole and they feel sidelined. In another context, there are plenty of local people who feel East Riding and Goole Town Councils are not listening to the public.
A healthy community must accommodate a wide variety of views, and that isn’t always easy.
In the past week, first myself, and then Stu Allerton have posted on All About Goole about safety and quality of life issues around traffic and noise in the area of the Victoria Pleasure Grounds. This prompted comments expressing concern and frustration, along with comments supportive of football and rugby and local businesses. Then somebody said on the post I had put up that they hadn’t seen any comments from councillors. One of the group admins said that they thought all of the councillors had left All About Goole Facebook group.
One of the councillors did reply. There is a screenshot of that reply with this post, because I feel it raises some important issues about democracy in Goole and the East Riding.
This comment refers to me and my “cohort” and says he does not have to answer to people like us. I don’t know who he thinks I am, since I’m not aware of us ever having met, but in terms of cohort, since Stu and I both posted about our concerns regarding safety and quality of life round VPG, Stu is presumably part of my cohort. So a Goole Town councillor doesn’t think they have to answer to anyone who has concerns about the VPG project. Who is Stu? A private citizen, a working man, a taxpayer, a man successfully treated for cancer, a father and a grandfather. – the councillor doesn’t think he has to answer to people like that.
About a year ago I created a petition to have the Town Deal reviewed, and Stu has been closely involved in creating the petition and the updates. I did so because of the number of people I had talked to who are unhappy with the Town Deal project - them not me bringing up the subject - while seeing the constant stream of publicity about how great the Town Deal is. You can see the petition here: https://www.change.org/GooleTownDealReview
The petition has not got huge numbers of signatures – 669 at the time of writing – but that is on a par with the number of votes the Town councillors each use to justify them holding office.
I submitted the petition to All About Goole during the period when two Town Councillors were moderators. It wasn’t declined, but it wasn’t published either. Is that really ethical two councillors suppressing a petition about a scheme the council is involved with and is spending public money on, on a Facebook group which then had just under 30,000 members?
Those two councillors have stopped being moderators on All About Goole and I feel the discussions have become much freer and more inclusive of different points of view and the whole community rather than being the mouthpiece of the two councils presenting itself as a community group.
That is a good thing because there is a large professional publicity operation behind East Riding Council which extends to the Town Deal project. There is a Town Deal website, what seem like press releases seem appear in the Goole Times as editorial, and there is TV, press and radio coverage too. Good publicity for the town, yes, but it means there is very limited opportunity for ordinary folk to make their voices heard if the powers that be don’t like what they have to say. Especially so when two councillors were controlling what was posted on the All About Goole Facebook Group.
The councils, and companies, also have access to funds for expensive legal representation, and threats of legal action which ordinary members of the public do not have.
In the comment from the councillor he says that I spend all my time rubbishing the efforts of others instead of doing something positive, that this is probably why other councillors have left All About Goole, and that I and my pals have “cut off a source of information” for Goole people.
This tells us a lot about Goole Town Council’s attitude to being questioned and challenged – they don’t like it. They are taking decisions about spending public money. They have legal duties and responsibilities around openness and transparency, and also a duty to build trust - public trust in local government and other institutions being at a very low ebb. It is not the role of councillors to graciously favour the public with information, they have legal duties to communicate. Town Council minutes have become minimalist in recent months. The fact that a councillor is saying councillors have probably withdrawn from All About Goole because they are exposed to questions and challenges they don’t like now that two councillors are no longer moderators and thus no longer able to control the public debate should worry everyone who believes in democracy.
Valuable opportunities for public discussion have been suppressed. Questions and concerns have still be raised though about safety and residents’ quality of life with the planned changes at Victoria Pleasure Grounds, but they have been dismissed and ignored. Not once have residents in the area around Victoria Pleasure Grounds been consulted on the potential impact on their safety and quality. The first two rugby matches have encountered issues which the councils were warned about repeatedly and have ignored as being “negative” and “always running Goole down.” If you go through the petition updates those issues were raised, but the councillor dismisses them as “rubbishing the efforts of others instead of being positive.” I know Stu has raised concerns over a long period of time. We’re told that “no doubt the safety debrief will have come up with a list of things for the next game.” No doubt there were comments on these lines after the Titanic sank, which lost lives of around 1500 people. It’s better to plan effectively to mitigate risks rather than improve things after tragedy.
An alternative way of viewing the concerns, questions and different ways forward that myself and others have offered is that we also care about the town, district and people, but we have different ideas, and also concerns about the impact of some of the current plans. However, our alternative views, energy and passion, are not welcomed by the powers that be.
The leisure centre rebuild and the Victoria Pleasure Grounds projects between them will cost £24 million we are told. That is a lot of money. The Victoria Pleasure Grounds is in a residential area with narrow streets, blind corners and very high demand for parking due to HMOs and converting houses into appartments, even when there are no events. Of course there is emotional attachment to the ground, but that is not a reasonable argument for saddling present and many future generations with a 19th century sports facility in a location unsuited to 21st century needs. In 2009 York City Council opened a sporting village costing £9 million. The Bank of England inflation calculator puts that at £14 million in 2025 prices. That’s £10 million less than the combined leisure centre and VPG facilities. It is legitimate for members of the public to ask whether current plans are the best way forward. People have worked hard on plans, but are they the right plans?
An elegant way round things would be to suddenly find unforeseen problems – say the drainage at VPG and the foundations at the Leisure Centre, continue temporary arrangements for longer and work on a sporting village somewhere with space and good access, and which will be a great asset to Goole for generations to come.
The Post Office scandal and the Grenfell Fire are just two examples of the powerful using their access to resources and the legal system to silence question and suppress challenge, with tragic consequences. Dissent is being silenced in Goole by those who hold power. Do we want to risk tragedy here?
The councillor doesn’t like my alternative Facebook name. When my friends put pressure on me to set up a Facebook profile, I set up a profile in 2009 registered in my legal name, but which displayed a different name on my profile. This ensured that online my private social media presence was separate from my professional Internet presence. My Facebook friends are my close friends, some relatives, and chosen family. It isn’t open access because I want my private life to be private. My Facebook name is the first name of the author (Nathaniel Hawthorne) of Rappaccini’s Daughter, a story I love, and the surname of a character from one of my favourite novels, Brett Caradine in The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. I subsequently added Rhisiart, the Welsh form of my middle name Richard – I prefer my middle name and asked people to stop calling me by my first name altogether after my Dad died. I am learning Welsh and it is one of four languages I use every day.
I mention this because the councillor brought up my alternative names, and did so in the context of his work as a councillor. That is important because while he may say he was expressing his personal opinion, legally it can be interpreted that he is communicating the council’s position. That’s a key factor in me wanting to keep my personal social media presence separate from my professional Internet presence. It isn’t a secret on All About Goole – indeed the councillor said he had been asked if he had seen what I posted by somebody at East Riding Council using me legal name, not my Facebook name. As far as I’m aware I don’t know anybody who works at East Riding Council, certainly nobody I’m at all close to.
With regard to the councillors comments about myself and my cohort/pals standing to be a councillor – Stu has a full time job and works nights. He also has a daughter and son-in-law and two young grandchildren.
On 23rd December, my cousin was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer which has spread to her spine, hips, bones liver and lymph system. She wants to stay at home, and she wants to pass as much of her estate as possible to her 13 year old great niece so that she has a good start in life, education, professional development and property prices being what they are. I’m helping her sister and niece, also my cousins, supporting her in achieving that.
I have been assigned an autism mentor, I’m learning about autism and I’m writing articles about how to thrive as an autistic person in a majority neurotypical world, not least by being economically active, and to be independent. I haven’t been through a full consultation and assessment yet but I certainly experience many of the issues and challenges faced by autistic people. I have done alright, but I feel I could have done better if I had understood much earlier in life. I can at least be a bridge and I want to use my research and writing skills, and experience, to help the autistic community. I will be doing it as part of my professional Internet presence. I looked after my parents myself in their later years which means I had to step back from my career when I really needed to be very active so that has had an impact – though I took the right decisions for us as a family. I volunteer with the Canal and River Trust and a medieval history society, I’m learning Welsh and contribute to celebrating Celtic languages and culture because I see them (being born in hospital in Wakefield and brought up from a few days old in Goole) as our shared culture.
Bear the above in mind in the context of Goole Town Council, through one of its councillors, having publicly described me as spending all my time rubbishing the work of others instead of doing something positive, creepy and dishonest. I’m a private citizen, I do not receive any public funds, I do not handle any public funds, I have merely questioned decisions by those who do. People can draw their own conclusions as to why I haven’t put my name forward to be a councillor.
Posting this is likely to result in further attacks and bad-mouthing. I feel democracy is important, and it is under attack, so we need to defend it and ensure it survives.
I am submitting this to All About Goole as well but I cannot be certain they will accept it.