Reform UK promises 'change is coming' in St Helens

"Change is coming," the new Reform UK leader of St Helens Council softly but determinedly told the Town Hall chamber as he took his place there for the first time on Wednesday.

The chamber was full of new faces: Reform councillors elected in a landslide contest just two weeks ago.

Labour had controlled St Helens Council for most of its 52-year history, but the elections saw the party almost completely wiped out - with just two councillors surviving. Reform has 33 of the 48 seats and now enjoys a huge majority.

The party's new leader George Woodward, an engineer by trade who grew up in Scotland, seemed undaunted by the prospect of leading the council and controlling a multi-million pound budget.

However, he did concede that his ranks of new councillors lacked experience.

Woodward defended a decision to spend £50,000 per year on a political assistant – a request made and approved at his administration's first meeting.

The proposal was seized upon by opposition parties.

Rainhill independent councillor Donna Greaves said Reform should have "put its hand in its own pocket" to fund the role.

She said: "Why should the people of St Helens - who you've promised a better life - fund this?

"If you need political assistance, you should have gone to your national party and got it from them."

Her ward colleague James Tasker said: "If they need help and advice on any area of the council, there are paid officers who they can speak to at any time.

"If it's political advice they need, the central party should offer that.

"It's certainly early days for them, and we just wait to see what these positive changes are they'll be bringing in that they have promised to the people of St Helens."

Former Labour deputy council leader Seve Gomez Aspron said: "Reform campaigned on a campaign of cutting costs, and their first action is to employ a political advisor, because they said that they are naive and did not have the political experience.

"That will cost residents of this borough and council taxpayers up to £200,000 over the next four years.

"That could reopen two of the libraries that we had to close due to austerity."

He said Labour had a good record in St Helens, which was "widely regarded as a well-run, well-respected stable council" with "good financial management, good financial accounts, our adult services and our children's services are all rated good or outstanding.

"So compared to a lot of our neighbours, it's not a council that is broken."

Woodward defended the move and said "dozens" of councils "have political assistants on council payroll - it's a very common practice".

He added: "The people of St Helens voted for us and they expect us to be fresh-faced and starry-eyed and hit the ground running.

"But they're also aware of our weakness, which is that we are untested, we don't have much political experience, and we're open and honest about that.

"We want to deliver for residents first and try and avoid these mistakes which have plagued other councils and try and get the learning from operational experience that could help us deliver straight off the bat."

Before the election, the Labour administration had made what some claimed were last-ditch attempts to shore up their support.

They promised £50 school uniform vouchers for every school child in the borough, and also to make parking free in the town centre while extensive regeneration work was under way.

Woodward said a review of what he called "Labour's vanity projects" would be undertaken.

He said: "We're looking at all major portfolios where savings can be made and efficiencies can be found."

The new council leader said he would make no commitments until he and his new cabinet colleagues had combed through the books.

Woodward said voters in St Helens had put their trust in Reform because Labour had failed them.

He said: "It's the classic 'red wall left behind', high-deprivation area where many residents feel that something is missing; they feel that they don't have that spark any more and we're hoping we can try and tackle that and bring it back.

"It's going to be a difficult journey, but we think we're up to the task."

Outside the Town Hall, people had mixed views about what a Reform-led council would mean for them.

Carole Burke said St Helens was "due a change" and felt Reform's win was "a good thing".

She explained: "I am just hoping everything will change. I feel at the minute nothing's right - I feel the council's not done enough to help people, and any change is better than that."

Sean Duffy, who owns two tattoo parlours in St Helens, said he hoped the new administration would follow through on commitments made by the previous regime.

He said: "It's going to be hard for a Reform local council to get money off Labour central government.

"We might all just get disillusioned. We had an alignment with the Labour council and the Labour government. Things started improving and as soon as they started improving it's 'Vote everybody out'!"

A woman who didn't want to be named said the local election saw her switch away from Labour for the first time in her life.

She picked Reform instead.

She said: "I keep thinking, what is it for my grandchildren here? There's nothing, you know what I mean?

"I just want more for my grandchildren."

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