The Only Conservative in the Pennine Village

A week in the Life – Councillor Adam Branton

As a Beatles fan, I did think about calling this "A Day in the Life." But one day wouldn't cover it — so here's a few weeks instead. If there's a theme running through it, it's probably the other Beatles line — all you need is love. Not that kind. The kind you have for the place you live, and the people who quietly hold it together.

Let's start with full council, where we'd prepared as a party over a two-hour meeting. On the agenda was a motion to use council resources and time to object to the deteriorating situation in Kashmir — a region of contention involving countries thousands of miles from the UK, with our foreign policy shaped by decades of careful diplomatic calibration.

I stood up to make the point plainly: this is not a matter for councils. Foreign policy by council amendment simply isn't that careful. Residents, or advocacy groups with direct knowledge and lived experience, carry far more moral authority on this than sixty councillors in Rochdale weighing in on UK foreign policy. Was that not already clear? When did we cross that line? The Motion was carried, regardless of the Conservatives' common sense and well thought out policy.

I also raised a technical question on data exfiltration risk in the council's use of AI — a growing threat that, in my view, is one of the highest facing the authority, and one that needs proper countermeasures and mitigation in this fast-moving arena, with no time to procrastinate.

I stood up in council and spoke on both the motion and the question. But full council is the visible part of the job — three hours in the hot chamber, once every three months, in front of a public gallery and cameras. What it doesn't show is the two-hour party meeting days before, the reading and preparation that goes into it, the earlier two hours meeting with council officer or everything else that happens in between. Taken together, it's a gruelling day before you've even got out of bed!

Early July started with the usual liaisons: correspondence on various issues across Wardle village, a quick email on the 1st, a chasing email the next — calling Planning about an HMO, a look at local footpaths, and a new trend of residents deciding they're entitled to park on bus stops.

By Wednesday, I was at a LEAF (Littleborough Events) social — always useful for chatting with opposition Labour councillors, who I seem to see rather more often at these things than anyone else from the ward — and equally useful for walking various footpaths and checking on anything that needs looking at in the ward.

Thursday night is the regular Wardle Society meeting, alongside a growing pile of casework. The load has increased since I became the only Conservative in the Pennines, and with the addition of the Ashley Dearnley casework — which alone has brought together dogs, overgrown hedges, footpaths, HMOs and planning, and flag poles.

Monday brought an additional strategy meeting ahead of full council — reading motions, preparing questions — followed later by an hour's drop-in surgery, and residents' concerns about bins being left out on the pavement. On top of all this, there's social media to keep updated — still the only real and freeway, alongside LittleboroughLocal, to get information out locally, including TikTok and Instagram.

Back to full council — where we were also asked to vote on an increase to our own remuneration. It's worth pausing on that: I struggle to think of another organisation where people vote on their own pay rise. Yes, there's an independent auditor's recommendation behind it, but in every other line of work, that's simply a given — you don't have to vote on it.

I didn't want to vote on it at all. The British public are clear that it's already too much, and I agree with them. At the same time, I see the effect this has on who's willing to take on the role. What successful business person wants to lose money for every hour they give up to public service? My own business has suffered with me losing a few hours a week to case work. There's a balance to be struck somewhere between the two. We Conservatives voted to abstain — not because we don't think the work has value, but because we don't believe it's ours to give ourselves in the first place.

This is the reality behind the three tiring hours in the chamber: the emails, the chasing, the walking of footpaths in the baking sun, the surgeries where people bring you their frustrations and, sometimes, their anger — because you're the one who answered the phone. It's a job with very little thanks and, too often, a fair amount of grief for simply doing it and doing your best. But it's still the job, and it still needs doing.

And I'm far from alone in giving up time for little or no money. Every other Tuesday, the Wardle litter pickers are out clearing away what others have thrown down, holding back a small tide of negative energy, of the entitlement of 'not my problem' — one bag at a time. The volunteers behind the charity shops give their hours freely, week in, week out. The carers give more than most of us will ever know. The volunteers of LEAF. None of them do it for recognition, and most do it without a word of thanks. That's love for a place, plainly shown — and it's worth more than anything said in a council chamber.

Nobody becomes the only Tory in a Pennine village for the money. Most weeks, you'd be forgiven for wondering what you became it for at all. But then you remember — it's the same reason the litter pickers turn out on a Tuesday morning. You do it for the conservative values, you do it for common sense values, because you love where you live and the volunteers who contribute — who make it our problem and our solution.

Cllr Adam Branton – a week in the life.