On May 13, Rye Town Council met. On the agenda was an item I wanted to comment on from the floor, as a member of the public. The item concerned the earmarking of £6,369.00 pounds of tax payers’ money to purchase fourteen black academic robes to be worn occasionally by town councillors. These are not the mayor’s splendid red robes, nor the town crier’s blue rig, but some rather nondescript gowns. They are not always worn in the chamber and they are rarely seen beyond it.
Whilst I suspect a case could be made for the touristic value of the town crier’s and mayor’s distinctive attire, I think it would be vanishingly unlikely that such a case could be made for councillors’ sombre gowns. Indeed, I’m almost certain you could scour the globe and find not a single tourist that came to Rye to see them and to spend their dollars or euros. Indeed, I had hoped to ask whether a study had been carried out to quantify the value of these robes to Rye’s tourist economy, but I was not permitted to because a procedural point was hastily mustered to prevent me from speaking*. Though I’ve lived in Rye since 2011, I currently reside about 500 metres outside the town boundary. But, rules is rules… Hopefully, Rye News will allow me to make my case here.
The money for the robes was allocated back in January, and at the last meeting I spoke from the floor and suggested the budget be re-opened and these monies be re-allocated to more pressing needs in the town. Reading the May 13 agenda (item 30), I assumed that Monday’s debate was to review the allocation of these funds. I commenced by asking the mayor if this could be confirmed, but didn’t get much further before my enquiries were shut down…
But why make a fuss? Well, it seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that in a cost of living crisis, £6,369.00 could be better spent on people rather than pageantry. Thankfully, Simon Parsons and many others made this point for me, when they highlighted the lack of public lavatories for the use of visitors during the height of our tourist season. Could the funds earmarked for robes not have been used to keep open the Strand Quay toilets during the summer? Might vital tourist facilities have a more quantifiable impact on the local economy than the dubious value of gowns? I suspect so.
As a brief aside, a suggestion was vaguely made that a local "loo crew" could be assembled to keep clean the toilets on Strand Quay if they could be re-opened. This would save money. I’m happy to be the first volunteer for that duty. I dare say the council, in their wisdom, will grant me dispensation in this case, as strictly, I live outside the town boundary…
These are the other points I had hoped to make to the town council:
Tradition is important. But as the tireless people who run Rye’s two burgeoning food charities might tell you, you can’t eat tradition. Having previously spoken to Rye Foodbank about their vital operation, I would make an educated guess that the £6,369 allocated to robes would run Rye Foodbank for about six months.
Another charity operating weekly in Rye to assist the town council’s parishioners to put food on the table is the Repton Community Trust. The Trust runs the People’s Pantry from The Hub on Rye Hill and from Tilling Green Community Centre on alternating Fridays. Like Rye Foodbank, it combats food insecurity, but works slightly differently. For a donation of £1.50 you can take away £5. worth of goods, to a maximum of £20. This "social supermarket" plays a vital role in an era of pervasive economic hardship, and I’m reliably informed that £6,369 could fund the Rye operation for a whole year. That’s a lot of food security, a lot of well-being, and an awful lot of nourishment for families in our town who face real hardship.
Had I been allowed to speak, I was also going to suggest town councillors cast their minds across the rooftops, down Conduit Hill and across the railway tracks to Rye College. At Rye College around 35% of students are eligible for Pupil Premium, which is government funding aimed at removing learning barriers for disadvantaged children. The national average is 27%, by the way. I wondered how many school uniforms could be subsidised for the cost of fourteen black robes, which do not assist the decision making of the council and likely add nothing to the local economy? It’s now seemingly a moot point, but certainly worthy of serious reflection: what’s more important to Rye’s future? Robes? Or the next generation of Ryers?
So, that’s why I’m making a fuss. I could equally have added that Little Gate Farm is trying to raise £50k for a wheelchair accessible minibus. Or that Rye Bay FC, which does so much for the health and wellbeing of local children, is wondering where it’ll get £2000 for a pair of Under 11 goalposts.
With local authority funds at breaking point, service cuts deep and pervasive, there’s no shortage of organisations needing support, but this money could have been so much better spent. Moreover, a much more perceptive and empathetic conclusion could have been reached in January. What does this Marie Antoinette decision say to people who are already disaffected by politics? Who already feel voting makes no difference to their lives? I’m a reasonably educated and articulate person, and even I cannot get a hearing at the lowest rank of local government.
Is it any wonder that at the town meeting and at the last Rye town council meeting the same question has been asked by the same man about how the council intend to engage all sections of our town in local politics? I’ve suggested holding the next council meeting at Tilling Green for starters, but otherwise, to this day, I’ve heard no adequate answer to that insistent question.
So, I’m all for tradition, and had I had the opportunity, I would have concluded by suggesting the inauguration by Rye town council of a brand new tradition: one that had real significance today; a tradition that made a virtue of the threadbare robes. I would have suggested that they be considered not a stain upon the esteem of our august town council but rather fourteen badges of honour, symbolising something vitally important in any democracy, that the dignity of an institution is not more important than the dignity of those it represents. We should measure Rye’s civic pride by the well-being of its people, not the turn out of its councillors, and in this climate, robes are a very long way down the shopping list.
*Thanks to those Councillors who voted in favour of my request to speak.
