Saturday, 4 October 2025
News from Calderdale
Report of the Calderdale Council meeting of 24 September from Cllr Jonathan Timbers.
The meeting started with good news, highlighting one of Calderdale's strengths. Calderdale markets has been awarded Market Operator of the Year 2025. That covers all of the markets in Calderdale including the Borough Market, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge markets. Thanks to Calderdale's highly experienced market team and Councillors Mrs Carter and Joe Thompson for their commitment to making us the best in the country.
There was a question about bins in Hebden Bridge. Councillor Durrans, the portfolio holder for Place (which includes bins) replied, In terms of Hebden Bridge, there are 55 public litter bins in and around the town centre and these are emptied at least once a day, with those that see most use (such as in the heart of the town centre/around the market) being emptied more frequently.
The bins in the park in particular may fill up late afternoon and evening, but they will always be emptied as soon as possible the following morning.
Only four bins have been removed over the past three years - two from the Rochdale Canal near lock number nine, one from Burnley Road, and one from Station Road.
The canal bins were removed because the Canal and Rivers Trust indicated that, due to the need to reduce costs, they could no longer fund their servicing and upkeep; the one on Burnley Road was not well used and was also difficult for the operative to empty due to its location; and the bin on Station Road was being repeatedly misused by people, depositing household and commercial waste (and there is an alternative bin available nearby on the main walking route).
"In terms of street sweeping, Hebden Bridge is swept once a week, either Monday or Tuesday at 5.30a.m. (when few people are about to see this happen). Hebden Bridge also benefits from the services of a dedicated operative who uses a barrow and is responsible for the cleanliness of the town centre"
There's was a question about the Square Chapel asking Calderdale to help to reopen it. I think we'd all love to see that - I was only speaking to Halifax Philharmonic Society the week before about that - but unfortunately Calderdale do not own or operate Square Chapel and so its powers are limited. However assurance was given that we are trying every avenue available to promote its reopening. As with the bins, it all comes down to money and there not being enough of it to do everything we'd like.
The next question was about Calderdale's adherence to the all party parliamentary group definition of Islamophobia baselessly trying to link it with failure to investigate and prosecute Pakistani grooming gangs. The definition applied correctly would never stop proper investigation of grooming gangs. There is a growing number of attempts to link Muslim communities to sexual abuse, using spurious arguments, playing on the old racist trope, 'they're after our women'.
I don't think that these questions have anything to do with prosecuting abusers of all races and religions since it's almost always men across the spectrum – Muslim, Christian and of no religion - involved in abuse in gangs and individually, often in positions of trust (only this week, my Church has appointed a new Archbishop after Justin Welby had to step down for covering up abuse).
The Casey Report shows that West Yorkshire Police do collect and publish extensive ethnicity data on grooming gangs. Any rational person should agree with her conclusion: "It plays into the hands of groups with divisive political agendas not to examine or deal with these issues conclusively. This does everyone a disservice, including Asian and Pakistani communities". More of this, I regret to say, later.
The Leader's Report covered discrimination on the rise in anti-Semitic and racist incidents particularly in Halifax where recently an NHS worker and her family were a target of racist abuse and violence. The leader contrasted this with the kindness and fairness of the majority of us in Calderdale.
I asked the leader ( Cllr Scullion) about the Bus Bill and bus franchising, which is coming our way in the next couple of years. However, our key services – the 590 and 591 – will not be franchised but permitted because they run cross border with other transport authorities.
There was I said a lack of clarity about the permitting as opposed to franchising regime and what that would mean for the democratic control of those services and their quality and frequency. Councillor Scullion assured me that the permitted services would be equivalent to the franchising ones and we would see a return to the level of service that we enjoyed in March 2024.
She also committed to asking the West Yorkshire Combined Authority for a Plain English explanation of the difference between franchising and permitting. After I receive it, I will publish that explanation on my Facebook news feed.
In the mean time, I have also met with a leading WYCA transport official to ask for more detail about permitting and highlight the difficulties that people around here experience using the buses, including wheelchair users.
There was a motion from the Conservatives about fly tipping. I spoke in favour of the amendment. In particular. I wanted to recognise the incredible work of our fly tipping teams, the number of prosecutions that they make, and the amazing collaboration in this ward between the fly tipping and enforcement teams, the hilltop parish councils and the National Trust around Widdop Road and Blake Dean.
A big shout out to Heptonstall parish Councilor Sue Slater who has been bringing people together to tackle this issue.
Labour put forward a motion about tackling violence against women and girls in Calderdale. There were some very moving and upsetting contributions from women councillors about their experiences and those of their friends and family: the constant fear of sexual violence and the need for constant precautions when out and about.
They stressed that we men have a responsibility to be allies and push back on sexism when we encounter it, in whatever form it takes.
A Reform Councillor tried to hijack the motion and focus entirely on communities that "are not British and do not share our values about women", but this so missed the point about the motion, or the reality that women face in all communities, that it was treated with the contempt it deserved.
Finally, there was a motion from the Greens that we all supported opposing fracking. There aren't any immediate plans to frack in Calderdale but technically, it may be possible on the Shibden Hall side of the Borough. The Tories sort of supported it and sort of didn't with an odd speech about the challenges of energy costs. I reminded them that the primary reason we have such high fuel costs was the Conservative 'dash for gas'. This was accompanied by mass closure of the coal mining industry, with no long term transitional plans to switch to cleaner industries. Instead we became dependent on imported gas especially from Putin's Russia. That's why we pay such high energy bills and why manufacturing struggles. We are still literally paying the costs for that disastrous policy, not least those communities which have never really recovered from Mrs Thatcher's determination to break the National Union of Mineworkers.
See webcast of the Council meeting
Councillor Jonathan Timbers
Labour Councillor for Calder Ward, covering Hebden Bridge