Jodie Chillery is one of two ward councillors for the newly-formed Fairfield and Arlesey electoral ward. She lives in Arlesey, ran as an Independent councillor in the local elections back in May, and stormed to victory with 895 votes – more than double those cast for either of the previous incumbents running in the same ward. She and our other new ward councillor, Nick Andrews, a Fairfield resident who ran for the Labour Party, represent a change in our local politics – both Fairfield and Arlesey had been returning Conservative candidates for at least the last twenty years prior to this election. FM’s Deborah Kane caught up with Jodie recently to see how she’s settling into her new role. 

This interview has been split into three parts. In Part One, below, we discuss Jodie’s background and why she stood for election; Part Two focuses on what it’s like to be a councillor, how things work within Central Bedfordshire Council and some of the different departments and issues that Jodie has come across; and in Part Three we move on to discuss communication and collaboration – including how to get more residents involved in local politics, and how the relationship between our two ward councillors works.

DK: Thank you for agreeing to chat to me today. I just really wanted to find out a bit about you… who you are, why on earth you wanted to become a councillor, and how you’re getting on.

JC: Well, I shall start with a little bit of background and then I can tell you exactly why I wanted to become a councillor, because I can almost pin it down to the moment! So, I grew up in Arlesey. I moved away when I was 18, never to return… and to be fair I did stay away for a good while. I moved back probably about 15 years later. Part of the attraction was that it was close to London, close to work, football and all the rest of it. 

DK: So you’ve known Arlesey your whole life, but you’ve also actively chosen it as the place you want to live as an adult, which I’d say is already quite a solid foundation for being a councillor. Did you have any relevant experience?

JC: Well, I co-founded the Arlesey Rail Users Group – which was not really in my nature to do, but I used to work on BBC’s Watchdog so I’ve got quite a good background in consumer affairs, and asking the right questions of the people at the top. I know how to do that. There was a national timetable rejig that went really badly wrong, I think it was in 2018, and the trains basically didn’t work for three months. Our MP then was Alistair Burt, and he got involved right at the beginning to lobby on behalf of his constituents. And I can’t remember now how he did it, whether he just arrived at the station one day – but he basically approached a few people and said, Really what you need is a passenger group, are you interested? And lots of people said yes, but then when it came to actually going to the meeting nobody wanted to go. 

DK: That sounds familiar! 

JC: And I thought, well, I could go – so (along with a few others) I did. Alistair Burt had arranged for the CEO of the rail company to be there, and then once the introduction had been made between the residents and the rail company, he stepped back completely, and that was it really – we spoke directly to the rail company and managed that relationship. And we became quite a good little supportive community – the people that used the station and never talked to each other! And I didn’t really do that much… If there was a problem I had an in with the people that could potentially solve it, and a willingness to communicate that. That’s all! And people would come up to me and say, Thank you for everything you do, and I thought, I feel a bit of a fraud because I don’t really do anything…

DK: That worked out brilliantly, then, because you’re obviously helping people, but actually it’s not that much work. 

JC: Yeah! It was just the fact that I could be bothered to do it, and that I knew how to relay the problems without being overly emotional or overly accusatory. So that was a little bit of background experience in being involved in a community thing. 

DK: And are you still involved with that now? 

JC: Yes, and it’s all really positive still. The rail company have had loads of work done, they’ve got a new control centre, they invited us down to go and have a look. We met the man who literally controls our trains – and he said, Oh, Arlesey! We never used to know where that was but all we hear about now is Arlesey!

DK: That’s a nice little illustration of how effective you’ve been! So how did all of that lead you to CBC? 

JC: What happened was this: The year before the elections, 2022, Christmas time, my son cycles to school to Pix Brook. And one day, the underpass was flooded. Now, this is a problem that has gone on for years, but for me it was a new problem because my son had only quite recently started using that underpass…

DK: This is the underpass between Arlesey and Stotfold – not the one that we’re more familiar with here, between Fairfield and Stotfold, which also floods!

JC: Yes. Arlesey and Fairfield underpasses both have had historically the same problem. It doesn’t always affect them at the same time, but broadly the reasons for it are the same. So, my son couldn’t get to school and nor could his friends. 

DK: So what did they do? 

JC: They cycled through it! This was in December – it was cold, and icy. And the first I knew of it was when he came home wearing his PE kit and a pair of socks that weren’t his! 

DK: Oh no!

JC: He looked like a dishevelled mess and certainly not how he went to school. I asked him what had happened, and he told me: “The underpass was flooded, so my teacher told me to put my PE kit on because my school uniform was wet. And he has a pack of brand new socks in the cupboard because he knows that this happens.” So the teacher had bought a packet of socks to dish out to kids who got wet feet on the way to school. I was outraged! Not because the underpass was flooded. But the fact that a teacher in the school was prepared for this eventuality, and yet nobody in power had done anything to stop it happening. It just blew my mind. The solution isn’t fix the underpass, the solution is a teacher will put his hand in his own pocket and buy socks for the kids. That’s mad!

DK: But standing in that teacher’s shoes, he can’t do a lot about the underpass, but he can at least make sure that the children have dry feet when they get to school. 

JC: Oh, I haven’t got a problem with what he did. My problem was he shouldn’t have to. So I got onto the council. They said, Oh, yeah, it’s been reported. And I said, Well that’s not good enough, what’s happening? They said, Well, the pump’s broken. So I said, Well, what about tomorrow? How are the kids going to get to school if the underpass is still flooded? And they didn’t have an answer for that. So then I spoke to our then ward councillor – who, to be fair, acted. He told me everything he’d done in terms of getting highways to come out and look at it. And then I said to him, When’s it going to be fixed by, and have the schools been informed? Because a lot of parents don’t know. 

DK: Of course they don’t, they don’t use the underpass!

JC: Exactly. So if they’ve gone to work and their kids have got to the underpass and can’t get through or whatever… There were children crossing the A507, somebody had called the police… it was properly chaotic! Anyway, cutting a long story short, it went on for days. 

DK: And they didn’t manage to communicate or put anything in place for the children to get around it? 

JC: There was a garbled message in the school newsletter, and I read it and thought, that doesn’t match what the ward councillor told me. So I ended up speaking to the headmaster… I asked where he’d got the information from, and he said he’d got it from the kids! So then I said, Haven’t you spoken to the council? And he said, No, they haven’t spoken to us – whereas the council had told me, Yeah, absolutely we’re communicating with the schools… 

DK: Just telling you what you wanted to hear!

JC: So I just thought to myself, this doesn’t make any sense. All that needs to happen is that the council think, The kids can’t get to school, we’ll tell the school. The school can tell the parents – like they would on a snow day, for example. It’s really simple. I understand that all this has to happen at 6.30 in the morning, so it’s a pain, but it’s not difficult. It’s an emergency situation, right, so… 

DK: So you just do it. 

JC: I just couldn’t believe that I was being told on the one hand that something was being done, but on the other hand nobody was really sure. And then all over Facebook, people were asking, What’s happening with the underpass? I’ve reported it, but I haven’t had a response… So I wrote on there, “These are the people that I’ve spoken to, this is what I think is happening, I’m trying to get the schools to communicate with parents when they have information so that we know what’s going on”… And loads of people got in touch with me saying, Thank you, that’s fantastic, who are you? Are you in a position of authority? And I’m thinking, No, I’m literally a nobody! All I’ve done – and this harks back to the rail user group – is ask what I think are probably the right questions, of the right people – hopefully! – and I’ve got some sort of an answer… We haven’t actually solved the problem yet, but… 

DK: But you’re communicating, so everyone feels better. 

JC: Exactly. And then very quickly I had people from Fairfield coming to me saying, Do you know what’s happening with the Fairfield underpass? And I didn’t. But I said, Don’t worry, I’ll find out! 

DK: That’s above and beyond!

JC: My husband said to me, Why are you doing this? And I said, Because the kids can’t get to school!

DK: And I guess at that point you were in touch with the right person. Everyone can moan on Facebook, but fewer people send the same message to the person at the council who can actually help to resolve it. And without a personal contact it can be very difficult to get the message through quickly – you often just get that automatic response that says someone will read your message within 48 hours!

JC: To be fair, I think in this instance a lot of people had reported it, including a teacher from Etonbury who had also gone and stationed herself outside the underpass and was helping kids carry their bikes through…

DK: Which is great, but again it’s like the teacher with the socks. It should be coordinated, and communicated, so that everyone knows whether or not there is a safe route before they send their children off to school…

JC: Exactly that. No joined up thinking is what I thought. And I think I remember saying to somebody, “Oh, it’s ridiculous. I could do a better job myself!” 

DK: And the seed was sown! 

JC: Haha! I think lots of people think that from time to time, but I happened to say this to a ward councillor from Biggleswade, who I know through the rail user group, and she said to me, Well, why don’t you do it yourself? I hadn’t really seriously thought about it before then, but at that point, I just kind of thought… maybe I should give it a go. Even though I’m not hugely political. I’m not a career politician. There’s nothing in it for me in that sense. 

DK: You mean it’s not a springboard to anything? So there’s no incentive for you personally, apart from just making things better locally. 

JC: I just think things could be better locally. And when I found out that the ward boundaries had changed so Arlesey and Fairfield were now a ward, that appealed to me, because they’re two quite different places yet all the gripes are the same, and actually we have a lot of shared facilities…

DK: And it’s also nice size-wise because the two places are sort of equivalent. It’s not like the previous ward boundaries that had Fairfield as part of Stotfold, where Stotfold’s massive and Fairfield’s just an afterthought.

JC: Exactly. So I thought, There’s kind of a challenge there – in a positive way. When I speak to people it is always the same issues. The underpass, which I already knew something about, and the cycle path, which is sort of linked… actually in Arlesey we’ve got quite a good cycle path, but the one between Fairfield and Stotfold obviously isn’t great. I went out and cycled it myself to have a look. And I spoke to people in Fairfield and they’d all say, We’ve been moaning about this for ages but nobody’s ever actually bothered to come and have a look at it before. And I would say, Really? Why wouldn’t they come and have a look, see what it’s really like? 

DK: I’m not sure I agree with that… there’s a difference between moaning about something and reporting it – to assume that everyone who moans about it has also reported it, and that CBC therefore knows about it and is actively ignoring it, is a bit of a stretch. But also, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. How do they know that nobody’s been out to look at it?

JC: I think the officers come out and do stuff when they need to, absolutely. I’ve got lots of people saying to me, “They don’t care, CBC don’t care…” and I think that’s a wholly unfair accusation.

DK: Yeah, and I know Fairfield Parish Council have been working away behind the scenes advocating for quite a lot of improvements, including to that cycle path. They’e just not always very good at communicating and they don’t announce everything they’re doing, so people assume nothing’s happening. 

JC: You’ve hit the nail on the head there, it is mostly about communication. And I’m a big advocate of just telling people what you’re doing. Sometimes you can’t, and sometimes it’s difficult because you don’t want to overpromise – you might announce to the world that this horrific pothole is going to be fixed, and then it doesn’t happen, and everyone’s like, “You said…!”

DK: Or sometimes it’s the fact that it doubles the work – if every time you do something you’re having to compose an announcement… because that is actually quite time-consuming, making sure you communicate in the right way, isn’t it?

JC: Definitely, you do have to be careful. Yeah, so, really, that’s why I decided to stand – because I can see ways that things can be done a little bit better. And what I mean by that is that ground-level, front-line stuff, that communicating with the residents, listening to what people need, getting a feel for where things could be improved, or even getting a feel for where things are good, because we’re not very good at celebrating the things that are done well, either! And I’ve learned that both at Fairfield Parish Council and at Arlesey Town Council, loads of things are done really well, and of course we don’t notice them because we’re so tuned into the things that aren’t quite right.

This interview has been split into three parts. In Part Two Jodie discusses what it’s like to be a councillor, how things work within Central Bedfordshire Council and some of the different departments and issues that she has come across.