'Our home, our place - and at the heart of everything we do!' Calderdale Council leader's vision to take the borough forward

Housing, transport, business, climate change, business and community will all be issues the authority will need to tackle in the coming years and Coun Jane Scullion has outlined how challenges might be faced.

The new Leader of the Council says she is approaching the job with three “Rs” in mind – reviewing, rethinking and reconnecting.

Elected unopposed by party group colleagues, she said a smooth transition of leadership is a sign of a good council and it will benefit from long-serving leader Tim Swift (Lab, Town), who stepped down from the role at May’s elections, agreeing to serve as her Deputy.

“But that doesn’t mean things won’t change – there has also got to be change,” said Coun Scullion.

“It’s tribute to how much Tim has built up, that’s a great foundation, but we are now looking at what we need to go forward.”

That will mean doing things differently, smarter and certainly using digital technology while ensuring face-to-face help is available for people who need it, she insisted.

It will also likely mean being more selective about what the council does, making the right choices for Calderdale and doing things well.

Close partnerships including the voluntary sectors and businesses will be crucial – and particularly health and care partners.

And people will be asked to think about what role they can play in their communities.

“Because of cuts and austerity and the way councils are funded, we will be trying to do fewer things but doing them well,” she said.

Getting the best out of the council’s relationship with West Yorkshire Combined Authority, including on public transport, will be based on the good relationship already there.

It might mean not bidding for every pot of money made available but developing a programme that was “ambitious” and right for Calderdale, said Coun Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot).

She said she wanted everyone in Calderdale, including the council’s staff, where 40 per cent have joined since the Covid-19 pandemic, to feel a sense of, and pride in, place in the borough

That would include reviewing how the council relates to its communities, Coun Scullion said.

Coun Scullion hails from Stirlingshire in Scotland but having moved to England to study at university fell in love with the country, the place, and her husband, Andrew Bibby.

The couple have been together 45 years, 34 of them living in Calderdale.

People hearing her accent on first meeting her often ask where in Scotland Calderdale is, but that gives her the chance to explain, and promote, the borough.

“I’m still working on my Yorkshire accent!” she said.

Already a parish councillor, she was inspired to become a borough councillor after experiencing the severe flooding of Boxing Day 2015, which devastated the Calder Valley, and the help her family received from people from all over the district.

“I have got very deep roots in Calderdale and one of the things about being a councillor is that pride of place – I was tremendously loved by the kindness of people,” said Coun Scullion.

She says the qualities needed as a councillor include the ability to listen to and empathise with people, and definitely, and how she describes the job of councillor to her six-year-old granddaughter, “an interest in problem solving.”

Coun Scullion also has professional background in both voluntary and public sector working.

Next year’s Year of Culture, to mark the borough’s 50th anniversary, is an opportunity she hopes people will embrace.

“We’ve been through a miserable time with the floods and the pandemic, the people of Calderdale need to have some nice things happening.

“I am going to take stock of things like plans for the Year of Culture – I hope everybody gets a bit of that where they live, I want all to feel that, a pride of place,” said Coun Scullion.

She feels the borough’s distinctive market towns are a crucial part of the mix, and she is aware some say “Halifax gets everything” compared to towns like Todmorden or Brighouse at either end of the borough.

“I want to review the distribution of the way the council relates to its market towns – I want to hear from people about the way in which the council relates to that and give all our towns a lot of love,” she said.

Within Halifax itself – “our biggest town, and we should be proud of that” – she is keen to examine how footfall, retail and economic benefits can reach and strengthen the top of the town as well as the bottom where the Piece Hall is situated.

Coun Scullion has recently talked to a business about the possibility of bringing in another 500 jobs – and reconnecting to businesses after the pandemic is another priority.

Tourism benefits should be maximised for all parts of Calderdale.

In terms of housing, now adopted, the Local Plan needed to be operationalised.

“We need to think about what housing looks like, is it affordable, retrofitting homes – most of the houses in Calderdale are already built, most of the housing in ten years’ time is that which exists,” she said.

Retrofitting links in with climate action, making better insulating homes and saving energy and bills.

Her approach to climate action would be “practical and pragmatic”, said Coun Scullion, and an easy-to-understand way of explaining it to people developed.

With major highways schemes aimed at increasing flow of traffic, including passage of public transport, meaning less fumes being belched out by stationary vehicles – sometimes people saw schemes as anti-car but “it’s not, we’re really about choice”, she said.

Partnership working with WYCA and cross-border councils, particularly on issues like rural bus services and electrification of the Calder Valley railway line, was important.