Sutton Scarsdale County Councillor Robert Reaney.

30/10/2026

A massive congratulations to Kranlee Logistics LTD who are based on the Markham Vale industrial Estate at Junction 29a of the M1. They have just won the King's Award for Enterprise. This small firm, born in the teeth of the COVID lockdown, which now employs fifteen people locally, has been recognised for their national and international work by our King. Well done to the founders, Karen Moseley and Lee Wells, seen here with His Majesty's Lord Lieutenant accepting that award. I do not speak about Markham much, but it falls in my ward of Sutton. It has taken more than twenty years to achieve, but it now employs more people than it did when there was a mine there. The site continues to develop, and it is home to marvellous firms like Kranlee, who are part of the story that shows how much Derbyshire bats way above its weight. Well done Kranlee, well done, Jamie Hodgson and DCC, our host; and yes, the sandwiches were terrific. Yet another very positive story putting Derbyshire firmly on the map.

26/10/2026

So, Labour wants to re-join the EU, do they? Why? Originally billed as a 'Common market', a quick dive into the stats shows us a few problems. Before joining the EU in 1973, the UK used to enjoy something called a trade surplus. In plain terms, we sold more than we bought and made a profit. After joining the EU, that immediately became a rare occurrence. We are told access to this great market will generate jobs for us. In fact, quite the reverse is happening. The charts below show that the EU was buying less and less from us way before any Brexit debate. In fact, they always wanted to sell us far more than they bought. While our exports to non-EU countries have continued to rise significantly since the early 2000s, they have dropped like a stone with the EU. The truth is, they want to sell us their products, but not buy ours. Witness the 1990 Beef and Offal ban. The 1996 Complete Ban on British Beef. Followed by limitations on British beef imports between 1996 to 2006. Restrictions on Milk and Cheese exports. Heavy-handed fishing limitations with licences largely to Spain. 2021 Shellfish limitations, as well as sausages and mince meat. To say nothing of their picking apart our industries such as the motor industry, steel, mining, oil and gas, utilities, nuclear, amongst others. Let's also bring to mind the debt levels across the EU, with France at 120% of GDP and Italy at 135%. Greece is still over 150%. Both Belgium and Spain are over 100%. France could implode at any moment, and the German economy is nosediving. Several countries have unemployment over 5%, with Spain over 10%. Yet several of the main countries have higher average salaries than the UK, including France, Germany, and Ireland. On the quality of life index, where the UK was always in the top ten, we no longer rank in the top 15 and now lag behind countries such as Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia, and Estonia, to name a few. Naturally, Germany sits way above us. Let's not forget that the EU is also a massive red tape factory, passing an average of 1,200 new regulations a year for the last fifty years. You do the maths. I won't highlight the crazy ones. That's an average of 23 new regulations a week. 18 EU countries enjoy lower corporate taxes than we do. Some are as low as 9%, with Ireland at 12.5%, which is why it's doing well. Not because it's brilliant, but because you pay less tax there as a business. We also have some of the highest energy costs across the EU, and our exports have to get across the channel before we can sell them, a cost many other countries do not face. The EU do not want to help us. They want to sell us their products. They do not want to buy ours, and on no measure can I find any evidence to suggest joining them would trigger any boost in either jobs or trade. In fact all the evidence points the other way. They will take our industry and jobs and export them at the best possible speed as they have done pretty consistently from the start. We have de-industrialised, and a lot of our jobs have gone to the EU. This is no longer just a market. The name has changed to the European Union because this is now about controlling legislation, forcing monetary union, greater levels of public control and a financial grab. I won't touch on the chances of us being dragged into a war. I won't touch on mass migration. I won't touch on the massive European swing to the right. I will however suggest that rejoining the EU in the hope of some sort of economic miracle or silver bullet is ridiculous. They have demonstrated that they do not want our products over a sustained period. They all want to boost their own economies, naturally enough. Suggesting that they would all want to suddenly prioritise our products, when most of ours are more expensive, is for the birds. Those being sold the concept that rejoining the EU would solve our problems are being sold a massive red herring. Do your own research by all means. The evidence is pretty clear.

20/10/2026

In case people are interested, the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust has a walking tour around Bolsover this Friday morning. They have a good website, and a description of the tour is below:

B@R does Bolsover!
Friday 25th September, 9:30am-1:30pm (approx) - Free
Join us for a very special walking tour of Bolsover town centre and New Bolsover, led by B@R volunteer, Bolsover resident and local historian, Wendy Stevenson.
We’ll begin at Bolsover Assembly Hall with a short introduction to our Buildings at Risk project, before heading out to explore the town. Wendy will show us that Bolsover’s fascinating heritage has much more to offer than its famous castle!
From the historic town centre, we’ll make our way down to the model colliery village of New Bolsover to discover more about the town’s industrial heritage. Along the way there will also be opportunities to put the B@R app into practice by completing some building condition surveys.
We’ll finish back at the Assembly Hall with a chance to chat over light refreshments. Whether you’re interested in local history, have downloaded the app but would like a little help getting started, or are already an experienced B@R volunteer, you’ll be very welcome.
Please note that the visit covers approximately 3.5 miles and includes grass, uneven paths, steps and some steep inclines, so appropriate footwear and outdoor clothing are essential. Numbers are limited, so early booking is recommended.
Photos: DHBT - Bolsover Castle and New Bolsover Model Village.

19/10/2026

Bolsover and N.E.Derbyshire councils are currently consulting on their local plan. The link to give your opinion on it is here: https://www.ne-derbyshire.gov.uk/localplan
It closes at the end of the month and is a massive plan. My response as a councillor is below if you want to have a read:

My ward is Sutton, which covers the area between Bolsover and the main Chesterfield hospital at Calow, basically. Whilst I guess that the plan is legal, there is a question of whether it is sound?. I would make the following points on that, although I am unclear how you would word them to fit into a formal response.

1: If you add up all the potential houses outlined on this plan it amounts to 23,803 across just two constituencies being Bolsover and N.E.Derbyshire. I have no idea how many are planned in Chesterfield central on top of that. My guess would be that, with those added on, we might be topping 30,000 in one small area of North Derbyshire.

2: Currently Bolsover has 790 households waiting to be housed on its waiting list, and N.E.Derbyshire has 2,286, making a total demand of 3,076. Therefore, my first question has to be: why would we produce a local plan that provides more than seven times the current demand? The local plan is refreshed every five years, I understand. Therefore, would it not be more sensible to generate a plan that caters for the actual demand, and adjusts accordingly at every renewal?

3: My concern is that by highlighting where the council feels property development might fit, then it becomes far more difficult to refuse planning permission in those zones if applications do come forward, which they are bound to do. So, by setting these areas out, are we unnecessarily greenlighting unrequired and unwanted mass development?

4: The response I receive when I ask such questions is a blanket response that we have a housing shortage locally. A quick search of the internet finds that between 1,450 and 1,600 houses are typically for sale withing a five-mile radius of Chesterfield Town centre, which is the sort of radius you would expect people to commute, and the sort of radius easily reached by public transport systems. So, where is this shortage? That is not a figure you would get if there was a genuine lack of supply. The market naturally takes care of ordinary buyers so there is no shortage. The local plan is aiming at supplying people on the waiting list. So, why plan for seven times the local demand?

5: On top of houses, the local plan outlines additional areas for commercial development, and other items like mobile homes for travellers. These amount to hundreds of extra acres. Outside of that local plan is also pressure for the development of solar, wind, battery farms and data centres and electricity pylons and power station upgrades. Taken as a whole, it’s clear that this will swallow large amounts of greenbelt and farmland, which my constituents have never at any time said they want. So, this is entirely against local wishes. Farms and countryside issues are not mentioned in this plan at all from what I can see.


6: Specifically for my area. Section 4.15 Duckmanton Moor Village. A proposal to basically build a new village of between 2,000 and 3,000 houses on greenbelt. Local knowledge will inform you of the fact that, that exact land was cleared of housing just a few decades previously, and the Arkwright housing estate built to relocate people. This was because of gases leaking out of the ground and it was unsafe for people to live there. Such was the volume of gas being released. So, land that was cleared at great cost because it was actually unsafe, is now in a local plan to be built on. I would also comment that the road is one of the main arteries out of town to the motorway junction at the top of the hill. That road is chokka block already at every rush hour. I feel that it is unlikely to be able to cope with a new village being built on it.

The above is one example. In a large number of cases, large scale housing projects are being proposed in locations where the local roads and infrastructure is already stretched. In the case above, the proposal is on land previously considered dangerous.

My conclusion, and concern as a councillor is therefore:

1: I am concerned at the volume of property planned and openly question the need.

2: I am concerned about the lack of local knowledge displayed regarding land allocations and its suitability. I have not even touched on flooding which is already problematic in Chesterfield.

3: I am concerned about the lack of oversight, or absence of any sort of representation of the big picture of what all this would look like when combined with the extra elements I have mentioned. Nowhere is there any sort of graphic or picture showing what this would look like if all this was achieved. It’s like it is being purposely hidden.

4: I am concerned at the open attack and vandalism of our green belt and countryside. I will not use softer words. This is blatant and quite purposeful vandalism.

5: The local plan does not even reference other options, such as the conversion of existing premises, heritage properties, or disused commercial properties of which we have many. There is no reference at all to revitalising town centres or high Streets. Despite large grants being available for brownfield sites or conversions, this plan seems to ignore those options entirely.

6: The only explanation that I can think of, is that there is some desire to grow Chesterfield to city status, which would then open it up to greater levels of funding and support. What we are seeing through numerous reports, such as the ones produced by the County Council Network as one example is that Cities receive far higher levels of support than towns or rural areas under this current Government. The money is not spread around evenly. I assume, this plan therefore, is the blueprint to transform Chesterfield to city status? If that is the aim of the local plan, then I suggest that is openly stated, and that there is some sort of local referendum to ask if that is what the public we represent desire.

In summary, I see a wildly exaggerated local plan, with little obvious justification, ignoring all other options, ignoring local knowledge, ignoring the dangers of flooding and historic land issues relating to mass mining, blindly outlining commercial build areas, with zero input into who wants or needs them when we have loads currently sat empty, and a plan that is going to be extremely damaging to the local countryside. The scale is uncalled for and although you are running a local consultation, I would say you are ignoring local opinion. Development of this scale requires local consultation at every parish, and across social media, for an extended period, or better yet a local referendum, to demonstrate it is what residents want. It is an unintelligent blast of forced concrete growth that ignores the consequences. My advice is therefore to completely scale it back to required or sensible levels and spend more time looking at maximising the alternatives before gobbling up greenbelt.

Further, I would like to see thought put into who, what or why we wish to develop further commercial property. Our current motorway junctions across 28, 29, 29a and 30 are all bordering on being oversubscribed, with 28 now being classes as borderline dangerous. Our commercial development at Markham has taken more than twenty years and is not quite completed and currently has a number of vacant units. We also have the Staveley Enterprise zone about to be built as well as one this side of Worksop. I can not find any reference in this plan about how you intend to attract businesses into the area or what type of business you intend to target. It’s a ‘build it and they will come’ approach. This is not the field of dreams and an unintelligent approach based on hope ignoring the current constraints concerns me. I would very much like to see a section in this plan specifically aimed at the commercial and business sectors linked into regeneration of high streets. I think I would like to understand that whole rationale much more.

Regards,

15/10/2026

Advanced notice: Work starts on upgrading the Calow power station next week, and traffic along those lanes is likely to increase significantly for the time being.

06/10/2026

So, is free speech in this country seriously under threat? From just this week's Free Speech news, I picked out the following Stories:

1: The 15-year-old boy was arrested by four officers at 8.00am in his bedroom for posting a critical remark online about how the local Conservative council leader was dressed. Cllr Simon Bennet of Wolverhampton was seemingly the target of the remarks.
2: From next March, under-16s in Britain will no longer have access to social media. But is there any intention to go further? Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, is quoted as saying: “We shouldn’t accept that this is the end. This is a staging post to what must be a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space.”
3: At the recent UN General Assembly, Andy Burnham announced plans for a new National Centre for Information Defence (NCID) to fight “disinformation” about the UK.
4: A recent report from our friends at Big Brother Watch (B*W) reveals that over the past five years, 62,199 people in the UK have been arrested for ‘communications offences’, with 18,510 being charged and 12,292 convicted.
5: Government secretly logging critical posts about the Prevent programme. Now – in a darkly ironic confirmation of Shawcross’s findings – the Metro newspaper has discovered that posts on X and Reddit criticising the programme along the same lines are being monitored and investigated by officials.
6: Cambridge students to be told that free speech must be “restricted” The sessions are being delivered by Stop Hate UK, whose training syllabus for “educational settings” tells students that their right to free speech is “restricted by other duties, responsibilities and obligations”. It also teaches them how “opinions and attitudes” (i.e. the wrong ones, obviously) “are influenced and shaped by unconscious bias, media bias, fake news”.

The list goes on, I'm afraid. Tell me your thoughts. Is having an opinion online becoming dangerous? Are we rapidly heading towards an Orwellian future? Is this state overreach? What do you think?.. and no... I don't intend to have you arrested if you say something I might not like.

05/10/2026

These three graphs focus purely on Bolsover. They show the rise of PIP payments, Universal Credit, and total benefits for our constituency, which is heading towards the £ 250 million region. Look at both the time frame and the direction of travel, which shows no sign of altering. You can tell me what you think the reasons are if you like. My concerns are: 1: What is your MP doing about it? 2: What are the reasons and therefore the solutions? 3: Personally, I see that Bolsover needs a sixth form to improve educational results. 4: I can see we need additional health centres to improve health results. 5: Key is the need for some major form of economic / jobs driver. Whilst I am trying to bring a missing industry here in the form of the film industry, we need other things. Sheffield has a focus on Technology on the Parkway, just a few junctions up the M1. Could we leverage that? The Bolsover constituency is largely rural; what are we doing about countryside or farming issues? What initiatives are taking place close by, such as at Ashfield, Mansfield and Bassetlaw? Could we coordinate? We have two new enterprise zones opening next year, one at Stavely and one on the road to Worksop near Cuckney. What other ideas and industries could we attract here? We have a little heritage and tourism, of course, but why is there not a coordinated plan? Why are things continuing to get worse, as these graphs indicate? The fact that total benefits have more or less doubled in less than a decade is seriously concerning. This constituency needs a serious economic boost, but what would produce that, or is it a series of things? What are Bolsover District Council's plans to turn this around? I look forward to your comments.

30/09/2026

What do people think to our promises within our first 100 days when elected?

Our first four pledges to the British people

26/09/2026

I had an amazing time at Heanor Grammar School yesterday, working with our amazing public health team, specifically the live life longer team, who introduced me to their programme to keep older people moving. Amazingly, I was there to present them a Guinness World Records certificate for the largest group in the world to do exercises together last year. This took place at Chesterfield Football club, who do a lot of community work, and involved more than 2,000 people at once. As a result of programmes like this aimed at prevention, I am told that life expectancy is higher in Derbyshire than surrounding Counties. This is a small team operating on an absolutely shoe string budget, but who are really knocking the ball right out of the park results wise. This is important work that helps keep older people connected, healthy, out of hospital and away from nursing homes. It keeps them independent longer. And as I said, they are running on a shoe string. Those pensioners were alert, active and a lot of fun. They are an incredible generation. We must look after and treasure every one of them. I thank my Director of services there, seen on the right for the invite, and I will certainly recommend a little more resources are put into prevention programmes like this going forward.

21/09/2026

Devonshire Terrace: Holmewood. Advance notice: Thermal Patching road repairs will be carried out this week.