TAMESIDE Council leader Cllr Eleanor Wills believes Reform UK’s virtual whitewash at the local elections can ‘slow progress.’
But she is prepared to work with the new power, if its councillors learn what they have taken on.
For the first time in 47 years, Labour does not have control of the authority after the borough turned teal.
A staggering 18 of the 19 wards went to the party led by Nigel Farage as voters delivered their message to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
“We don’t want you.”
Now as she starts to weigh up what happened now, Cllr Wills hopes what is the second biggest group – with the 18 adding to Longdendale’s Allan Hopwood – will work for the good of the area.
However, she said: “I think the fear of what happens now is that progress slows down.
“We’ve only had one Reform councillor that I can refer to in terms of building that kind of colleague relationship.
“And I suppose what’s interesting for a lot of these people is they’ve got a lot of learning to do about what local government is.
“It’s not really territory that we’ve been in before. We need to obviously go away and consider things.
“But if they’re prepared to learn and consider the obligation and the privilege that they’ve taken on, then I hope we can work with them and them with us.
“At the end of the day we’re all here to do good things for the people, I would hope.”
Cllr Wills saw several colleagues depart, including former leader Brenda Warrington from Denton West and ex-deputy leader Bill Fairfoull from Ashton St Michael’s.
Now she will ‘probably’ have to look at forming a link or a coalition with another group, along with where it went wrong for Labour.
However, she believes national issues crossed into local politics, issues Tameside Council has no power over, leaving her ‘perplexed.’
Cllr Wills added: “It definitely feels that way. I can’t say it doesn’t.
“There’s been a wave of Reform and that’s been reflected across the country.
“Immigration seems to be something that’s discussed throughout their party, certainly on a local level, and also within communities.
“Your local council is never going to have anything to do with immigration. Never, ever, ever.
“I don’t think Reform has any local policies, so this leaves me perplexed
“I think the way Tameside Council works will change because of these results. I don’t want to prejudge. I really hope that it can be progressive, as it has been.
“But I worry that we’ve seen a crowd in our audience at public meetings that doesn’t seem like they want to work with us.
“I’m hoping that now they’re around the table, they understand what it is to be a councillor.”
Now the votes have been counted and Tameside Council is officially in no overall control, many eyes will be on how things work in this new era.
For Cllr Wills, though, making people realise what was going on before may be a key takeaway.
She told The Correspondent: “We’re going to take whatever opportunities we can, but now we’re divided in our numbers, it could slow that down.
“Look at the collective years that we’ve lost in terms of experience, people that have been at the heart of their community.
“I want to pay a massive tribute to those people because I think they’ve worked damn hard for people across Tameside. The opposition has got a lot to kind of look at representing and replacing that.
“I’ve looked at what Labour can do better since day dot, for the last year-and-a-half.
“Look at every element of change that I’ve implemented, starting with the free car parking.
“We’ve then had cabinet in the community because I genuinely wanted to listen to what people want and implement change.
“We’ve put Ashton Town Hall back at the heart of the community and pledged to rebuild it by 2030. We’ve built in a town centre regeneration plan for each town.
“I’ve got two significant strategic acquisitions moving forward in Ashton now, which will really accelerate the regeneration plans for the town centre. I’ve pledged to rebuilding the swimming pool in Ashton.
“Literally, I think everything that anybody’s come to me and said is an issue in Tameside that’s within my gift to try and resolve and build a better future or a better horizon, we’ve absolutely done that.
“But broader than that, if we can’t do that, it’s about helping people understand.
“I often hear from people conversations about why we’re spending money in Ashton, and it’s about trying to help people see this isn’t money that could have gone anywhere other than Ashton.
“So we either invest in the town centre, or we don’t. But it’s not money that we could go and use elsewhere.
“We’ve had 14 years of austerity. All our town centres have degraded, it’s my job now to build that back, and I have been.
“And from my standpoint, we’ve just got to look at how we rebuild, because I believe, morally and principally, the Labour Party in Tameside has always had what matters to people, equality for all, at the heart of everything that we do.”