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, we discussed Jodie’s background and why she stood for election; Part Two, below, 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: So, we’ve heard a bit about why you wanted to stand. Once you’d made that decision… how did you find the campaigning? 

JC: Doing the election campaign was quite fun in many ways – delivering the leaflets and speaking to people. It was on the day of the count that I had a slight crisis of confidence. I just sort of looked at some of the other people standing, in our ward and other wards, and they were all – I mean they’re not all men, but there were a lot of middle-aged men asserting their authority and their experience. And I thought, Am I going to match up to that? And then I had to give myself a talking to, and say, No, that’s why I’ve done this! Because they don’t represent everybody. 

DK: They definitely didn’t tune in very well to the parents with children at middle school when the underpass flooded! 

JC: Yeah, I don’t think the urgency of that situation was really felt by those representing us – and of course a ward councillor can’t understand everybody’s individual situation. 

DK: There will be lots of situations that you’re not necessarily in touch with, too, I guess. 

JC: Definitely. But hopefully I can still show empathy. There have been about four people who I’ve been involved with since I was elected, who have either been facing some sort of housing crisis, eviction, or financial strife – real nightmare situations – and I’m not in their shoes and I can’t pretend to be in their shoes, but I have been able to effect really positive change and help those individuals out, at least in the short term. And I think I’ve been able to recognise the urgency of their situation because I can relate it to the urgency of my own situation when my son couldn’t get to school. So I know that for them it’s literally their whole life at that moment, and they’ve got nowhere else to go. I don’t know what happens when you’ve been a councillor for 20 years and you’ve seen it all before, I don’t know if you lose that empathy…

DK: I don’t know that you’d stop caring, but I think coming to any organisation with fresh eyes does give you a perspective that, actually, you will lose quite quickly – because once you understand the inner workings, you become more relaxed, you sit back a little bit and think, Well, I know it’s in process, and I know it will happen, but there’s not actually that much more I can do to speed it up. You have to work with the system, and the system is quite clunky, there is quite a lot of red tape in these government organisations… 

JC: Oh, it’s so slow, it’s so bureaucratic…

DK: So maybe you do lose the will to jump up and down as much, because you know that doesn’t actually make things move faster – although it does look good from the outside! And maybe you do get desensitised to some of the issues that you’ve seen a lot of times before, but I would hope that you might also get more efficient at responding to them…

JC: I think that understanding the bureaucracy, or understanding why things take so much time, and then communicating that, where it’s appropriate, is something that a ward councillor can do quite well. What I have learned is that most residents don’t actually expect you to be able to personally solve their problem. So if you can then they’re delighted, obviously, but actually if you just keep them informed of what’s happening then they’re happy, because they’re not in the dark and they can prepare and plan. So, yeah, I think you’re probably right there, your perspective changes, but once you gain an understanding you can share your understanding, and that’s quite useful, I think. 

DK: I think as long as you’re communicating information that is more than the average person has access to, then that’s valuable. But it’s got to be more than just telling everyone that you’ve reported something… Because you kind of proved with the underpass that anyone can report things, but now that you’re on the inside you have to be moving things on and being part of the solution – and there’s more to that than just reporting the problem.

JC: It’s like the situation with the pedestrian traffic lights that are out at the moment, which have been out for weeks, (now months) on the Hitchin Road. I think as soon as that development had finished and the roadworks had gone, within about three days, both Nick and I were saying, Right, can we turn those traffic lights back on? I can’t tell you how many meetings both of us have had! It’s really boring, but it’s a different company that controls traffic lights…

DK: Yeah, I saw this in the minutes, something about having to find a contractor who can turn them back on. Because all of us are thinking, How ridiculous that they didn’t turn the lights back on when they’d finished! But it turns out it’s not that simple – the contractor who was doing the work wasn’t actually in control of the lights…

JC: It’s got very complicated, the new road layout in one area has affected the safety of the lights and that seems to have had a knock-on effect to the lights by the school. I’ve escalated it to the director of Place and Communities at CBC and got some of the executive committee invovled. Its simply unacceptable that those lights have been out so long with no temporary alternative. It’s the underpass all over again, no one communicating to the school. The only difference this time is at least Nick and I are both communicating with the school and the officers, but it seems very slow to find a resolution and because I’m not a highways expert I don’t fully understand the issue. I simply want to know when it will be safe to cross the road again. 

DK: It sounds as though you’ve at least found the right people to speak to, which is the first part of the solution.

JC: The highways department takes a real bashing, but there are two particular guys within that department who are brilliant – good at telling us what’s going on, at explaining things generally. There have been some teething problems, because there was a new contractor signed up literally just before the election, and then a new administration came in and there have been new working practices to get used to. There’s a new portfolio holder for highways, and he’s trying to make improvements… so it was like everything collided – and it was off the back of a bad winter when the roads were in really poor condition! This year there’s a much better plan in place, a preventative plan, so hopefully things will be better. 

DK: That’s a very long explanation… Some might say excuse…

JC: It helps to understand the challenges, but I get it: If somebody gets in touch with me about a pothole, and I reply with all that… nobody wants to hear that, do they? They just want to hear that the one pothole they’re worried about is going to get fixed! So you have to have quite a thick skin and be a bit realistic about what you can do. And I’ve learned one very important lesson: don’t ever promise that a pothole’s going to be fixed on a particular date!

DK: What about bigger plans? Not just making sure things get fixed when they’re broken, but actually effecting change?

JC: That’s definitely important. There is an element of learning the process and asking for things that are realistic and achievable, but then there is also a level of saying, Well, hold on, we can do better than that, can’t we! And yes, there are bigger things on the horizon. One of the things I want to do is to drop the speed limit on that whole stretch of the Hitchin Road, beside that cycle path. But it’s not standard practice to go from 60mph down to 30mph without having a buffer of 40mph in between…

DK: Even though on the Stotfold side of that same roundabout they go from 60 to 30… and then very quickly down to 20! 

JC: Yes, and in Arlesey, on Hitchin Road, there’s a bit where it goes from 60 to 30 on a straight road, there’s not even a roundabout in between! So, yeah, there’s standard practice and then there’s looking at the situation and making a call. But that’s where it takes time because they have to come out and do a site visit. And to cut a long story short they are going to get someone out to have a look – but all of that takes a really, really long time. 

DK: Watch this space! So, the roads were one thing that definitely helped to get you elected, and clearly something that you have lots of ideas about. Is there anything else you’re particularly passionate about?

JC: I’m on the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which is quite good for someone like me who’s new and a bit inexperienced, because you’re not ultimately responsible for making any decisions, but ‘sustainable communities’ covers pretty much everything – highways, development, schools… everything has to be done in a way which is both environmentally sustainable and economically sustainable and functions within the community, so actually you get to learn a little bit about how everything works. It’s a really good introduction. I think there have only been two meetings since I joined, and they are a real learning opportunity for me and I am finding my voice in them. So in the first one, interestingly the whole cycle path and Fairfield Hitchin Road did come up because one of the exec members did a presentation about the proposed improvements to cycle infrastructure, so I was able to say something about how we prioritise that when the consultation happens. 

DK: So there’s a consultation coming up? 

JC: It’s actually open now. So I feel like I’ve got a real job on my hands to convince residents to respond to that consultation. Because if we come together as a community to show what our priorities are then that gets heard. I don’t think that’s been done very well in the past. I think people have felt a bit apathetic, because they think nothing will change. And actually what I’ve found is that you can change it, you just have to make the effort. Its now launched. So it’s the second round of consultation for Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIP) on the CBC website. CBC need to know what residents think about the proposed networks that will support walking, wheeling and cycling around Fairfield, Stotfold, Arlesey and Henlow, that will help us get to important local destinations like school.
The consultation (which can be accessed here: https://cbc_lcwip.commonplace.is/en-GB/proposals/s4/step1) closes on 14 December. It would be fantastic if residents could feedback to help prioritise areas within these plans – Hitchin Road from Eliot Way to the underpass being an area that needs attention!

DK: You’re obviously involved in meetings about the whole of CBC. Are you finding that there are a lot of little battles about where money is spent because everyone is standing up for their local area? Or is there basically agreement about what needs to happen and where?

JC: I think broadly, on the big issues that affect residents directly a lot of councillors are in agreement, but perhaps what the priorities are and how budget is used is always a debate. I feel – and this is my opinion and my perception, it’s not fact at all – that this end of the county has been neglected… and I don’t know if it’s been neglected financially, but I feel it’s been neglected in terms of airtime at council. Because we’re small, right? But that doesn’t make us unimportant. 

DK: We’re right on the edge as well, so you could suppose that not all that many residents of CBC ever pass through Fairfield and Arlesey.

JC: That is another thing. And we use a lot of North Herts facilities. So do we care what happens at the Saxon Centre in Biggleswade? Well, actually, we should, because our schools use it. Did we know that? No, some residents didn’t! So there are things that I think perhaps our residents could be educated about – things that CBC does provide for them that they might not be aware of.

DK: How much work is it, being a councillor? 

JC: It’s as much as you want to put into it. I mean, there’s a minimum. You’ve kind of got to attend the meetings that you’ve signed up to!

DK: But there’s also reading outside meetings and being prepared for meetings in order to get the result that you want, and interacting with residents…

JC: Yeah, I think the biggest pull on my time at the moment, and this is why I feel like we’ve been neglected, is I’m getting a lot of correspondence from residents. And either their previous correspondence – and this is their words – fell on deaf ears, or they’ve suddenly realised, Oh, there is somebody I can go and speak to about this, I didn’t know there was. 

DK: That’s the problem with putting yourself out there!

JC: Yeah! So I’m spending quite a lot of time responding to residents. Actually quite a lot of that is just sort of signposting them to the right department – or getting the right department to actually respond to them, there’s been a little bit of that too! I think in terms of the reading and genning up on stuff before meetings… everybody’s got their strengths and I certainly know my skillset. My skillset is not budgets, my skillset is definitely people. I’ve surprised myself at how interested I have become and how quickly I’ve gained a really, I think, good understanding with regards to SEN provision and schools. And, I mean, I’ve got a natural interest, because I’ve got a child at a school, but before I became a councillor that was perhaps no more than any other parent’s interest, whereas now I feel like I really have an understanding about how the school system works, and should work, and what issues the schools are facing… and I feel quite confident talking about that. So some stuff is much easier to read than other stuff, because I relate to it.

DK: Absolutely. 

JC: Other stuff, I’m a bit like, wow! 

DK: But then are you confident that there’s a good balance of interests and abilities across the council, and that somebody else will pick up on those other issues and deal with the things that you don’t feel an affinity for?

JC: So, I’m Independent and I’m Independent broadly because I’ve never had a particular political affiliation. I do have my own views, and I want to remain having my own views – and that’s not to say that my views might not align with a particular sort of politics. But I think the Independents group, who have the minority administration, is an incredibly broad spectrum of people, both in terms of their own political views and their own life experiences. There’s a broad age range, there’s a wealth of knowledge, and I certainly don’t agree with all of them, but that is great, and I have seen people’s views change because they’ve been exposed to somebody else’s experience – so it’s not an echo chamber.

DK: That’s good to hear! What kind of views have you seen change?

JC: At one of the sustainability committee meetings, one of the councillors stood up and gave a speech about biodiversity, and afterwards the chair said, “When I saw this on the agenda and read about it I didn’t think I was going to agree with you, but you’ve absolutely convinced me of why this is important.” And I think that is really refreshing.

DK: It is, actually – I wouldn’t have expected that to happen. 

JC: And the other thing that’s really refreshing is that this council has a great system whereby each committee is chaired by an individual who has experience in that area, regardless of whether they’re in the administration or not. So we’ve got Conservative councillors chairing some committees, we’ve got Labour councillors chairing some committees, and the committees are made up proportionately of a variety of councillors from each different group. And I think that that makes for a much more transparent council, but also much more effective debate, because no debate is shut down – or it shouldn’t be. So that’s quite exciting… I never thought I’d be excited by any of that. I thought I’d be more excited about saying Yes we can get the underpass open and then we can get you to school… So, yeah, I feel that’s quite radical, in a really good way. And I have also learned some really interesting stuff from people that I would never come across in my normal life. 

DK: That’s really positive, because actually it can be quite hard nowadays to put yourself into contact with people who have different views even if you want to. Across social media, for example, you only see posts from people and organisations who agree with you or tell you what you want to hear. And that’s absolutely not what you want to happen within a council. 

JC: I’ve also quite… I don’t know if enjoyed is the right word, but I’ve had some residents who’ve come to me, usually on social media, and they’ve been quite spiky… they want a fight… and I’ve been able to respond in what I believe is a factual way and then to offer support – and nearly always they say, “Oh, thank you”, and they come right back down, because I haven’t given them that sort of political spiel. And I’ve been quite honest – where people have asked me things, if I don’t know the answer I’m quite honest about saying, I don’t know, but I’ll go and find out. 

DK: That’s a skill in itself, which a lot of people don’t have.

JC: I think some people are frightened to say they don’t know. They don’t want to look ridiculous. But also I think in politics there are a lot of egos, and that doesn’t marry, does it? To say you don’t know. Whereas I would be horrified if I pretended to know about something and then got caught out. So it’s a little bit of a defence mechanism to say, Well, I’m not sure, but I’ll go away and find out. And sometimes, I might not really understand what that issue is, or it’s not something I’ve ever cared about before, so I need to go away and figure out whether it’s something I can care about. One of the things that I really struggle to care about is that we seem to talk about parking in Dunstable an awful lot!

DK: Do you ever go to Dunstable? 

JC: I probably should, just so that I can contribute! Part of me thinks, just let the people of Dunstable worry about that – but then on the other hand I would hate for other councillors to go, Oh well, I’m not interested in Fairfield and Arlesey. 

DK: Well that’s the thing, isn’t it, you do sometimes need to recruit people from other areas who don’t really care about us to get behind you.

JC: Yeah, exactly. And I think I’ve done that a little bit. Brought some people up to speed with some of the issues that we face here – that previously they were either unaware of, or aware of but very much in the background. And now suddenly they are saying to me, We need to make some of this stuff a priority. And I’m like, Good, we do, because we’ve been left behind. I really do think we have been left behind in the past. 

DK: Can I ask you about environmental sustainability, since you’re on the sustainability committee? Because that’s a hot potato nationally and internationally, obviously, and I’m interested to know how that conversation plays out at a local level.

JC: I feel like CBC has got sustainability in the environmental sense and biodiversity at the heart of a lot of decisions. And I think that hasn’t always been the case in the past. I feel like we’re getting quite a lot of residents excited about that. For residents whose blanket opinion previously has been “We’re losing the countryside, we’re losing all of our rural areas, nobody cares” to suddenly going, Hold on a minute, some people do care… And I’ve been very clear about saying to people, Well, look, we have a local plan, are you aware of what the local plan is? And most people are not, and then when they find out about it they go, “Oh wow, so this development is going to have to happen!” Yes, it is going to have to happen, but we can influence the way it happens, and we can make it a positive experience. We need to stop going, Oh, everything’s terrible, and we need to start saying, All of this is happening, how do we make it in our best interests? Because if we don’t, it’ll just happen without us.

DK: And that’s another hot topic – new building. And in Fairfield, except for Fairfield Hall residents and a few others, we’re all living in new buildings – so to suddenly say, Well, now I’m here I don’t want any more… It’s a difficult position, isn’t it? But then the new buildings that are here were designed in a very specific way to complement the setting, and we’ve all bought into that as residents, so to want to protect that setting is also natural.

JC: It is, and I understand what you’re saying, in that, if somebody moves into a new build and then immediately goes “I object to that new build there,” it’s slightly hypocritical. But on the other hand, when you move into somewhere you make your choices based on what’s there at the moment. And actually there should be much more information that is more readily available so that people can make choices based on what a place is going to look like in ten years’ time – because it’s naive to think that everything will just stay the same.

DK: To be fair, Fairfield is older than ten years, and even the people who did look ahead right back at the beginning would have been reasonable to expect that Fairfield would always be ringed by countryside and definitely not joined up with anything else. Because that’s definitely how it was designed. And now, although our parish council is working very hard to make sure we keep that buffer of countryside, it’s starting to look more precarious. Because we do need more housing, everywhere – but we also need places that keep their character and places where people want to live… so it’s a conversation that’s never going to end.

JC: It’s also difficult when a lot of stuff is bound in legislation that has been decided by central government, sometimes it’s just the way the rules are and we are powerless to change those rules – but we can still make them work in our favour. Even if we don’t get what we would want in an ideal world, well, it’s not an ideal world. 

DK: The other thing that comes to mind there – the lack of local insight – is the conversation about access to doctors, but that’s something that isn’t controlled by the local authority, isn’t it?

JC: The relationship between the council and the NHS is quite complicated. The council has no influence on how many doctors are employed, for example, so if we can’t get an appointment because there are no doctors, there is literally nothing the council can do about that. But the council can work with the integrated care board, the council can use its position as a stakeholder to feed back the experiences of residents, the council is responsible in some cases for providing the infrastructure, the buildings… 

DK: Sometimes those pop up in the early plans for new developments, which feels a little bit deceitful on the part of the developer, because it feels like they put them in there to gain support for the development, and then take them out at a later stage. I think either Fairfield Gardens or Fairfield Meadows originally had a space for a health centre…

JC: And where there is funding available to build new health hubs, that might sound fantastic to the residents, but if there are no doctors to go into them then that’ s a waste. A massive waste. And do you want your council tax spent on an empty health hub? Probably not. So there needs to be a more intelligent conversation around that. But that’s not a helpful thing to say to somebody who’s in tears because they can’t get a doctor’s appointment, so it is quite difficult sometimes. 

DK: We’re back to communication again. 

JC: Yes. My aim is that the more that we can help people to understand how things work – the more information that’s out there and the more easily accessible it is – the more the whole community can be involved in asking the right questions. There are loads of residents with really relevant experience, loads of different professions out there, people who have got information and who are far more skilled than I am… I literally have no skills in education, health, development, roadbuilding, I’ve never done any of that, I don’t know about any of it!

This interview has been split into three parts. In Part Three Jodie discusses communication and collaboration – including how to get more residents involved in local politics, and how the relationship between our two ward councillors works.

If you would like to comment on the consultation for Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans mentioned above – mentioning the cycle path along the Hitchin Road or anything else you feel is important – you can do so here: https://cbc_lcwip.commonplace.is/en-GB/proposals/s4/step1
The consultation closes on 14 December.