Statutory instruments for the creation of the new authority were made on behalf of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 25 May 2018, and a shadow authority was formed the following day.[3]
The Shadow Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council had 125 members, being the elected councillors from Bournemouth Borough Council, Christchurch Borough Council, Poole Borough Council and the five councillors from Dorset County Council who were elected from divisions within Christchurch. Similarly a shadow authority was created for Dorset Council, consisting of Dorset's borough and county councillors, excluding those from Christchurch. The shadow authority (with its executive committee of eight), and initially the Council itself, met in lecture theatres at Bournemouth University, as no other space was
sufficiently large to host all 125 members.[4]
The first meeting of the shadow authority was held on Wednesday 6 June 2018. Ray Nottage was elected chair and Ann Stribley vice-chair. A shadow executive committee was also formed and met for the first time on 15 June 2018, at which point Janet Walton was appointed Shadow Council Leader.[5][6]
On 2 May 2019, as part of the wider local elections, the authority held elections to replace the shadow authority. Whereas the shadow authority had 125 members, new ward boundaries created by the Local Government Boundary Commission reduced this to 76, across 33 multi-member wards. Whilst the Conservative Party won most seats, they lost their majority, with the newly elected council under no overall control. The Liberal Democrats were the second largest party, with 15 seats. Other parties elected included Poole People (7), Labour (3), the Greens (2), the Alliance for Local Living (1) and UKIP (1), alongside 11 independents. After negotiations, all groups other than the Conservatives and UKIP formed a "Unity Alliance" administration, with Vikki Slade (leader of the Lib Dem group) elected Council leader and members of other parties receiving Cabinet posts.[7]
In October 2019, two Poole People councillors left the party, one resigning from the Unity Alliance altogether.[8] In April 2020 Christchurch Independent councillor Colin Bungey died,[9] reducing the Unity Alliance to a minority of one. Whereas a by-election would normally have been held shortly afterwards, this was postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of May Conservative group leader Drew Mellor moved for a vote of no confidence to be held in the now minority administration, which was held on 9 June.[10] All 75 serving councillors attended the virtual council meeting, with all 36 Conservatives and one Independent voting for the motion and all 37 Unity Alliance councillors voting against; the single UKIP councillor abstained.[11] The vote was thus tied 37-37, and David Flagg, chairman of the council, used his casting vote to defeat the motion - dedicating his casting vote to the memory of the late Colin Bungey.[12][13]
Subsequent to this, Liberal Democrat councillor Pete Parish of the Canford Heath ward died,[14] and independent (and former Poole People) councillor Julie Bagwell left the Unity Alliance, reducing the latter to 34 seats.[15][16] A second vote of no confidence was tabled by Mellor for 15 September 2020, generating 39 votes in support and 33 votes against, ending Vikki Slade's tenure as Council leader.[17][18] At a 1 October meeting to determine the new leader, Mellor received 40 votes while Vikki Slade received 33, with one councillor abstaining. The Christchurch Independents group rejected Mellor's overtures to become part of the new administration, so the Conservatives remained for the time being a minority administration.[19][20]
On 20 September 2021, it was reported that four councillors from varying groups had crossed the floor to join the Conservatives, giving the latter a majority on the Council for the first time. These councillors were: Steve Baron (Parkstone), Daniel Butt (Hamworthy), Toby Johnson (Alderney and Bourne Valley) and Nigel Brooks (Highcliffe and Walkford).[21] Baron and Brooks had already been appointed to paid positions as Cabinet assistants, while Johnson was appointed to a remunerated post two months after his defection.[22]
The Conservatives lost their majority upon the formation of the Poole Local Group, later renamed Poole Engage, in June 2022;[23] this consisted of former Independent Julie Bagwell, plus four Conservatives who had failed to be reselected for the following year's local elections following a disagreement with the Poole Conservative Association.[24] On 1 October 2022 Redhill and Northbourne councillor Jackie Edwards left the Conservative group to sit as an Independent.[25] Three days later the Christchurch Independents held Highcliffe and Walkford in a by-election.[26]
Having obtained power in 2020, Mellor's administration announced a "Big Plan" for the conurbation, to "harness the potential of our coastline of opportunity"[28] - though the plan also included some specific pledges, such as investing in the Bournemouth International Centre and rejuvenating Poole. To facilitate this work, the Council set up an urban regeneration company, BCP FuturePlaces Limited, with Mellor and his deputy Philip Broadhead initially on the board, albeit unpaid. The company attracted controversy from the outset, with concerns about the six-figure salaries paid to its management[29] and its reliance on large infusions of public money, including an £8 million working capital loan advanced in July 2022.[30] As of October 2022, the company still hadn't produced an outline business case for any of its regeneration projects, these plans being pushed back first until the end of the year,[31] then until 2023.[32]
Bournemouth city status
Another aim of the "Big Plan" was to "invest in an iconic cityscape",[33] and in November 2021 BCP Council voted for Bournemouth to enter the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours contest in an attempt to acquire city status. Broadhead had intimated earlier in the year that residents would be consulted prior to any such application,[34] but in the event they were not consulted, nor was the Bournemouth Civic Society (whose members strongly opposed city status[35]) or the Throop and Holdenhurst Village Council.[36] It later transpired that the application, though for Bournemouth only, contained photographs of multiple sites in Poole and Christchurch.[37] The application proved unsuccessful in any case, Bournemouth losing out to Doncaster and Milton Keynes.[38]
Abolition of the Overview and Scrutiny Board, and Covidgate
The Mellor administration featured seven times in Private Eye during 2022, initially following its decision to abolish the Council's overview and scrutiny board (OSB), which held the monthly Cabinets to account. The debate on abolishing the OSB began at full Council on 26 April 2022, and due to a large number of absences on the Conservative side the Opposition won an amendment that would have kept the OSB while introducing extra scrutiny. Two Conservative councillors with COVID were then telephoned during an interval and turned up to the debate shortly afterwards, despite having sent apologies hours previously on COVID-related grounds.[39] The meeting was then abandoned due to safety concerns,[40] and at the reconvened meeting on 10 May there were enough Conservatives present to win a further amendment which abolished the OSB and replaced it with four smaller committees which would meet less frequently. Members of the Conservative group were elected as chairs and vice-chairs of these new committees (giving Mellor's party all the casting votes) - despite the convention, evident on Dorset Council and elsewhere, that scrutiny committees are chaired by Opposition councillors.[41] Mellor's Cabinet assistants, too, were installed on the new committees,[42] though they were removed from all scrutiny panels following a vote at full Council on 5 December 2022.[43]
Beach huts policy, and KPMG reports
Mellor's most controversial policy[44][45][46] was his proposal to sell the Council's 3,605 beach huts to a Council-owned company for twenty years, to cancel out a £54 million overspend.[47] A report on commercialising Council assets was commissioned from KPMG and this, the first in a series of reports from KPMG, was completed on 22 September 2021.[48] The report warned that if a company could only acquire Council assets because the Council had loaned it the money to do so, then "it is probable that the original borrowing ... would be deemed to be for an improper purpose";[49] similarly, if the Council were to provide a guarantee to the company to enable it to borrow the requisite funds, this too could "be deemed ... for an improper purpose".[50] A second report, specifically on beach hut sales, was then commissioned from KPMG and completed on 22 November 2021.[51] At the Council's budget meeting on 22 February 2022, Mellor denied that a completed report from KPMG existed (even though two existed) instead stating that he had "received comfort" from KPMG about his policy following "a series of workshops".[52] The beach hut scheme was voted through, therefore, without Council having had sight of the foregoing warnings.[53][54]
After several delays, the beach hut scheme came before the Council's corporate and community overview and scrutiny committee on 20 July 2022. Mellor did not turn up to the meeting, no reports or papers were produced, while a democratic services officer was left to answer questions from residents and anxious beach hut tenants.[55] The Conservatives' chief whip then proposed that the meeting be adjourned prior to any debate - despite Procedure Rule 17 of the Council's constitution, which forbids the use of the whip on scrutiny committees.[56] Nine days later, Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Levelling-Up, announced that he was stepping in to outlaw the beach hut scheme. It transpired that Kemi Badenoch, a minister in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, had written to Mellor on 16 June expressing "concerns" that the regulations surrounding local authority asset sell-offs were "not being used appropriately, as the assets ultimately remain within the Council's group structure".[57] Greg Clark went on the record to denounce councils that make "dodgy deals",[58] and on 1 August he wrote to Mellor stating that he was tightening up the guidance on local authority asset disposals, adding: "I will not hesitate to act where the spirit of the law is ignored or flouted".[59] BCP Council meanwhile set about applying for a £76 million "capitalisation direction", essentially a loan from Government, to balance its books.[60]
The KPMG reports - which cost the Council £120,250, plus VAT - were finally published at the end of August 2022, by which time the beach hut policy had long since been abandoned.[61] At back-to-back scrutiny meetings on 2 September, Mellor denied several times that he had played any part in suppressing these reports at the time of the February budget. The following week, at Cabinet, he stated that he had, in fact, suggested that the reports be held back.[62]
Petition to remove Cllrs Mellor and Broadhead from office
A petition from local residents to remove Mellor from office - along with his deputy, Philip Broadhead - was debated at BCP Council on 8 November 2022, having attracted 2,066 valid signatures.[63] A Conservative backbencher, Duane Farr, attacked the petition organiser Ian Lawrence during the debate, attributing the petition's authorship to "politically motivated trolls", "creepy, sad little people with nothing better to do", who "need calling out and exposing".[64][65][66] The Council voted to take no action over the petition.
2023 budget plans, and 'cleaning for votes'
The Council sold off assets, including three industrial estates, at the beginning of 2023 in an attempt to balance its books; this was dubbed a "fire sale" by Opposition groups.[67] The Council's external auditor, Grant Thornton LLP, nevertheless commended the administration for returning to more orthodox methods of budget-setting. In January 2023, Drew Mellor began planning a late amendment for the forthcoming budget, which would have involved deliberately overborrowing for a capital scheme, then applying the surplus to the Council's revenue account to minimise council tax increases. The Council's senior officers were so concerned about the legality of this proposal[68] that they contacted Grant Thornton, who urged them to consider their "statutory responsibilities" if the scheme went ahead.[69] Mellor by this time was also facing complaints from the public about his dishonesty in withholding the KPMG reports and other information from the 2022 budget, and these were upheld by the Council's standards committee on 17 January 2023.[70]
It was around this time too that Cllr Mark Anderson, who held the Environment post in Mellor's administration, devised what came to be known as "cleaning for votes" - a street-cleaning scheme aimed at benefiting Conservative wards in the run-up to the local elections.[71] The whole of Mellor's Cabinet were notified of this scheme in an e-mail sent by Anderson on 15 January 2023;[72] three days later, all Conservative members of BCP Council were e-mailed, again by Anderson, with a request for cleaning sites that would benefit them electorally - "the idea is to raise your profile".[73] As independent investigator Janet Kealey noted in her subsequent report, none of the Cabinet or Conservative group raised any concerns "querying the use of Council funds or resources in this way".[74] A complaint against Anderson was raised by an Independent councillor on 26 January and the matter was referred to Dorset Police, who decided not to take any action as the scheme had not yet been implemented.[75] The Council's standards committee subsequently found, however, that Anderson had breached the Council's code of conduct on six counts.[76]
Resignation
Mellor resigned as Council leader on 13 February 2023, and announced he would not be standing for re-election in the May 2023 local elections.[77] The resignation took place while the investigation into Mark Anderson's conduct was ongoing, and three days prior to an audit and governance meeting, where Mellor's budget proposals were due to be censured by the external auditors, Grant Thornton.[78]
Philip Broadhead's administration
Philip Broadhead, who had been deputy leader of BCP Council (under Mellor) since 2020, was elected leader unopposed on 21 February 2023. At full Council on 21 March, four members of Broadhead's group were due to apologise for breaching the Council's code of conduct: Mark Anderson; Drew Mellor (who failed to turn up);[79] Beverley Dunlop, who had sent "abusive tweets"[80] to councillors and members of the public; and Littledown and Iford councillor Bobbie Dove, who had insulted and demeaned residents at a Council meeting by falsely implying that they were down-blousing her from the public gallery.[81] Councillor Dove was found to have treated the public with disrespect, and was ordered to apologise by the standards committee for her breach of the code.[82]
The Conservative vote collapsed at the May 2023 local elections, with Broadhead's group reduced from 34 to 12 seats (out of 76) and several members of his Cabinet losing their seats; Broadhead himself hung on by just five votes.[83] All other groups increased their vote share substantially with the Liberal Democrats emerging as the largest party, with 28 seats (up from 13).
'Three Towns Alliance'
On 23 May 2023, Vikki Slade was elected leader of BCP Council unopposed; she would be leading a coalition administration, 'the Three Towns Alliance', comprising all 28 Liberal Democrat councillors, the 8 Christchurch Independents, the Bournemouth Independents Group (3 councillors), and the Poole People's Party (5 councillors).[84]
A by-election in East Cliff and Springbourne ward took place on 29 June 2023.[85] It resulted in a gain for the Green Party, bringing them up to a historic six seats on the Council.[86]
The Council voted to reinstate the overview and scrutiny board (while retaining separate scrutiny committees for adult services, children's services, and environment and place) on 12 September 2023.[87] It was around this time too that moves were made to close down BCP FuturePlaces Limited, the Council's urban regeneration company, and bring its functions in-house (a move endorsed by Vikki Slade's cabinet on 27 September 2023).[88][89] It also turned out that BCP FuturePlaces had been paying rent for office space to Hinton Road Investment Limited, a company fronted by ex-BCP Council leader Drew Mellor.[90]
^"Commercial and Financial Options Structuring", in 'Reports to follow pack' for Corporate and Community and Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, BCP Council, 20 July 2022, p. 10 of 144.
^"Commercial and Financial Options Structuring", in "Reports to follow pack" for Corporate and Community and Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, BCP Council, 20 July 2022, p. 48 of 144.
^"Commercial and Financial Options Structuring", in 'Reports to follow pack' for Corporate and Community and Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, BCP Council, 20 July 2022, p. 51 of 144.
^"Commercialisation of assets", in 'Reports to follow pack' for Corporate and Community and Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, BCP Council, 20 July 2022, p. 67 of 144.
^"Public Issues", in minutes for meeting of BCP Council Corporate and Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 6 February 2023, p. 2. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
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