Local election leader interviews: Conservative Party
In the second of six interviews, Stephen Davies speaks for the Conservatives on the upcoming Gloucestershire County Council elections
For a democracy to function it is the role of journalists to hold accountable those who would govern us and here in Gloucestershire upcoming county council elections give me the chance to do so.
Five interviewees representing the political parties, plus one representative hoping to form a strong group of independent councillors, have committed a time and place for me to ask questions - I do so on behalf of you, the Gloucestershire public.
This is your local election, your vote. Not every topic will be covered but contained in each interview are questions you the voter would like to have answers to.
Each interview focuses on the services Gloucestershire County Council provides as well as expectations and why you may consider voting either Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green, Reform UK or an independent.
My second interview representing the Conservatives to speak on Gloucestershire-wide issues is Stephen Davies.
Stephen has only been leader of Gloucestershire County Council since September last year after taking over the reigns from Mark Hawthorne, who announced plans to step away and leave politics completely for 2025. Stephen was first elected to the county council in May 2017 and was appointed cabinet member for children's safeguarding and early years in May 2021. He also served as leader of the Conservative group on Stroud District Council until February 2023.
Representing the Hardwicke & Severn ward to begin our interview Stephen says that being leader has “been a huge privilege" but can he defend his party’s record and lead the Conservatives to remain in charge of Shire Hall?
Going into this election the party has been running the council since 2005 and at the general election I don’t need to spell out how much of a disastrous result it was for former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. A landslide for Labour, only one Conservative MP survived out of seven in Gloucestershire, bleak would be one word you could have used for the Tories.
A mood for “change” happened last year, could that mood happen again if voters feel the Tories have been in charge of county council for a long time?
“There was nothing we could have said on the doorstep that would have changed the general election, Stephen concedes. People did not like the national government, they let us know that, we understand what voters said and clearly they were not listening to us.”
But yet, Stephen argues the new Labour government have taken steps he describes as “making a bigger hash of the country than we did. I do think there is a change of mood, we are getting a better response on the doorstep and I think the electorate are in a different place than they were at the last set of local elections and the general election.”
Defending Conservative-held divisions at this election, as well as hoping for some potential gains, it is arguable the real threat to the Tories in places such as Cheltenham, the Cotswolds or Tewkesbury, is not the Labour Party, but the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, maybe an independent here or there, and now Reform UK.
Nigel Farage’s party took scores of Conservative votes at the general election and here in Gloucestershire councillor Vernon Smith defected to Reform recently - not a great show of strength for any party before an election.
“I am certainly not denying this will be easy but I don’t think it will be a straightforward result, Stephen argues. I am quietly confident that this might be a surprise election” and “it’s a protest vote, which I think is also Labour’s problem too because there’s this assumption Reform takes mainly Conservative votes. I can’t find any policies and certainly none of their policies apply to local government.”
Should these elections even be going ahead?
The Labour government are pushing all areas of England to merge areas where there are currently two tiers of local authority, a brand new ‘unitary’ council is on the cards for the county. It means councils such as Stroud District, Cheltenham Borough and Gloucestershire County Council will not exist for much longer.
One suggestion of splitting Gloucestershire in two saw a backlash, which means there is no agreement politically on a way forward. Shire Hall Conservatives wanted these elections to be delayed but as one voter tells me, “I want to vote in this election because I might want to change who runs the council in the negotiations for the devolution settlement.”
“You have to understand why I made that request, Stephen explains. I wanted to delay because I felt we needed a unitary authority quicker and there is a side cost of £800,000 for an election. The main reason is staff morale because clearly our staff at all six district councils do not know what their future is. The prize at the end of the devolution settlement is to become part of a combined authority and that prize is money so I think a loss of a year of not being a unitary could run to tens of millions of pounds. Am I upset that we didn't get it? Not particularly but I'm very happy to have an election and I'm very happy to stand on our track record."
A track record is indeed what the Conservatives have to defend at this election, so what about council services and county issues?
The Javelin Park incinerator is a contentious topic, where there are claims it has cost taxpayers more than landfill, £42m over its first five years. The council has said the incinerator has generated tens of millions of pounds in income to help fund public services but burning waste is not exactly clean money for the county council is it?
Stephen says Javelin Park has generated an “additional £8m” and “if we didn’t operate Javelin Park we would be paying a fine by government for the Hempsted landfill site. We have to do something with the rubbish so we incinerate it which is better than landfill.
I am chair of the community liaison group for the energy from waste at Javelin Park and I feel the incinerator is better than landfill but is this perfect, absolutely not, is it better than the alternative, yes. All I would say to those who want to shut it down, what would you do with the waste that would have less impact on the environment?”
Stephen adds: “We are able to monitor and talk to the Environment Agency about low levels of pollution and if it became cost-effective we can continue to improve standards. When the EA have raised standards we have been able to hit them without major modifications.”
Other environmental policies might be on voters minds at this election, for example net zero and the relevant infrastructure needed to reach lower carbon emissions.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said it is "impossible" for the UK to meet its net zero target by 2050 - a goal set by a previous Conservative government. The UK is legally committed to reaching net zero by 2050 under a law passed by former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019. Badenoch said net zero cannot be achieved by 2050 "without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us".
“The country overall has made a great step in reducing its carbon emissions,” Stephen Davies argues as the county council has committed to reducing carbon emissions from all sources in the county to net zero by 2045 and to reduce emissions by 80% by 2030.
Stephen adds: “The early gains of net zero are easier, the later gains are harder and Kemi can speak for herself but I think she’s dealing with two realities, one that getting to net zero is not simple and secondly I think there’s a public view that we cannot win this battle.
Here locally, we have to do whatever we can including central government funding for our cycle spine or putting solar panels on schools where they’re seeing a 20 percent reduction in their energy bills. We are saving and reducing their carbon output, we’ve planted so many trees and I think the issue is global. We see China and India increasing its carbon emissions, the mood is changing which means people will be nervous to pay their taxes on trying to achieve something we’re doing alone.”
On the cycle spine, it is yet to be completed but once finished, the £48 million project will be a 26-mile long cycling and walking route connecting Stroud in the south to Bishop’s Cleeve in the north, including Gloucester and Cheltenham.
Residents on Evesham Road in Cheltenham, say the changes have made access to their homes too narrow and that they are forced into the opposite lane because of a tight turning angle when turning left out of their homes.
“The project does come from national money and there’s a standard we have to hit in terms of its width and surface, Stephen says. It is a spine and eventually it will have tributaries off it but of course I understand the disruption but if we build anything then disruption is what has to happen. I agree we need to maintain individual paths but I believe more people will use the cycle spine and make useful journeys.”
Potholes and road safety
Potholes
“We have 5,000 miles of roads to look after so I accept potholes are a huge challenge, Stephen tells me. We have been putting £10m extra in the budget and we have spent £100m over five years extra to spend on roads. If I had one bit of self-criticism we have focused a lot on A-roads and not so much on B-roads and more rural lanes.”
Stephen concedes that the Conservatives would like to do more after resurfacing 100 miles of road, and “we have to take a hard look on how we tackle potholes. Setting up council teams, we have filled in 90,000 potholes in the last year so we are certainly not doing nothing. We will never claim to have fixed every pothole, but we do feel we are heading in the right direction. It is important we fix our rural roads and we also need to maintain good pavements.”
Road safety
Voters have told me they will cast their ballot on whether candidates can guarantee concrete support for helping their community solve speeding issues. A Cotswold villager has told me they would like the next administration to help their community implement a 20mph limit.
There was a record number of road casualties in Gloucestershire in 2023, despite numbers falling across Britain. Provisional figures from the Department for Transport suggested there were 1,463 road casualties in Gloucestershire in 2023 – a 19% rise from 1,230 the year before. This was the highest figure recorded in the last 10 years. No matter the year, one casualty is one too many surely?
“If you look at road deaths, they are not just in villages, they are on the A-roads, which is why we are installing speed cameras, Stephen explains. We have made data driven decisions on where the accident hotspots are and what we're going to do about them. When it comes to 20mph we don't believe in blanket enforcement.”
“It is not easy to change the speed limit, Stephen adds. To change speed limit, you need a traffic regulation order (TRA), and we have a backlog of those and we’d want to prioritise those that are most critical and of importance. You also need policing agreement to enforce, a TRA goes out to consultation and if some people say they do want 20mph, I think you will find there are other people who disagree with the policy. It is easier to do in urban areas but we will try to accelerate TRAs for villages to get these done.”
Adult Social Care
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), rated Gloucestershire County Council as requires improvement, in how well they are meeting their responsibilities to ensure people have access to adult social care and support.
So what would Gloucestershire Conservatives do to raise the quality of care?
Adult Social Care is not provided by all councils but is by Gloucestershire who have responsibilities for some care homes, supported living facilities and Stephen himself has spoken on his personal experiences.
“This is the first time we had a CQC inspection and unlike Ofsted we are learning how to grapple with it and understand the criteria, Stephen explains. We've invested £57m on three new care homes and care has changed. It used to be that you went into an old people's home and stayed there forever, but now these care homes should be part of a journey back to independent living at home, and that's really, really important.
I think there are huge strides we can make in adult social care and it's a combination of a mindset that says people want to live at home and then there’s the technology to enable them. I think there is a a national problem in terms of staff but there is a challenge and I don't belittle it for one moment. We do have enough staff, we do need more but care homes are safe otherwise we would be inadequate rather than requires improvement.”
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Voters have told me there is currently little to no support for parents navigating the process of getting their child into a special school. Many families are struggling and burnt out after years of advocating, fighting and trying to figure out a system which feels impossible to navigate.
A new 200-capacity school for pupils in Gloucestershire with special educational needs in Abbeymead has been approved, but as parents point out, what can political parties or independent candidates do to support families in what is not just a Gloucestershire issue but a national one?
“We have announced the building of new special schools which does help because there are children who will not cope in mainstream schools, Stephen said. The SEND waiting list is under control of the NHS and that is a challenge for us to bring that down.
It is a national issue in terms of the number of education psychologists and the spending needed but we have put in an additional £2.3m to give children early intervention help which is better to get children off the waiting list and get them help sooner. I absolutely understand why your parent is frustrated because I hear it on the doorstep. We have acted, it does take money, but we feel we are spending money wisely.”
How to fund all council services, your council tax bill
County taxpayers are already coughing up more in household bills. The county council debated and approved the Conservatives’ budget proposals for 2025/26 at a meeting earlier this year.
Bills for the general public on top of a cost of living crisis involving high energy prices and the price of food - no wonder so many of you are feeling the pinch.
Are voters really getting value for money from the Conservatives when the tax burden is high? Surely austerity imposed by the 2010-15 Conservative-Lib Dem coalition is another factor on why council tax has risen to keep services going?
Stephen said: “I think voters are getting value for money and we have put council tax up to the maximum amount allowed because we are a solvent council and we have balanced our budget. If you look at other councils such as Somerset who are putting in bigger rises whilst cutting service, I’m proud that we are council not cutting services.
I don’t accept austerity is a factor because now we've got a new government, austerity did not end. This is the money we have available, our job is to deliver the best service available with that money, not sit here and blame austerity. Our job is to look for value for money and our job is to focus on continuous improvement.”
Why should voters consider the Conservatives?
“We’re a solvent council, we're delivering good services and we are focused on continuous improvement. We are faced with a move towards a unitary authority. We can argue whether that is a good or bad thing but the question on the table is we strongly believe in one unitary. Gloucestershire is a single Gloucestershire and it should not be split into two and every other party is not clear on this issue. If you believe Gloucestershire is a single Gloucestershire with a health service, a single highways department, a single adult social care department, a single children social department, and you do not want to split those in half, you have to vote Conservative.”
A full list of all candidates can be found here.