Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.
Tuesday was another normal day in local politics.
Messages from a Reform UK broadcast Whatsapp group showed efforts to ensure the new Police and Communities Together (PACT) meeting for Claremont - recently the site of a by-election - had a chair who would be sympathetic to the party.
Ultimately, the meeting passed by without a chair being appointed, but police warned that they would walk away if it became overly politicised.
Reform UK’s Mark Butcher insists they have done nothing wrong in this instance and it is ‘dirty tricks’ from detractors to say otherwise.
As ever, you can make your mind up.
Blackpool briefing
🩺 Blackpool Council’s work to improve adult social care (ASC) services has been recognised and praised by the government’s lead on social care.
Alison McGovern, Minister of State for Social Care and Mental Health, has written to council leaders acknowledging the “progress already made” in the improvement of services.
It comes after the services were rated “inadequate” in a damning CQC report last summer.
The minister praised how the council has been “responding at pace” to the CQC findings since the inspection report in 2025.
Blackpool Council has invested £1.6m in ASC in the last year, focusing on increasing capacity, improving workforce development and governance redesign, and bringing in new expertise in senior leadership.
A recent external assessment found this was already making a difference. Overdue reviews have reduced, workforce stability has improved, and safeguarding arrangements have been strengthened.
💦 A private members club in Blackpool has called for an investigation after its premises suffered flooding which committee members believe may be linked to the infilling of a historic drainage dyke.
The flooding occurred at Stanley Ward Conservative Club, on Common Edge Road, on Friday (October 23) when water entered the club’s basement games room, rising through the concrete floor and causing significant disruption to club users.
Members believe a watercourse which runs alongside the club’s eastern boundary was filled in when Elan Homes began building 86 homes for its Redwood Gardens development at Marton Moss.
The Club has submitted a formal complaint to Blackpool Council’s Flood Risk Management Team requesting an immediate investigation into whether all necessary permissions were obtained before the watercourse was altered and whether the changes have contributed to flooding at the premises.
Elan Homes has been approached for a comment.
❤️ A Fylde Coast group of recovering cancer patients have seen their support group going from strength
According to latest NHS figures in the area, there are approximately 11,500 to 12,000 people across the Blackpool, Wyre, and Fylde area who are living with a cancer diagnosis, with around 2,000 new cases diagnosed each year.
The KCS (Kick Cancer Away) Support Group currently has around 20 people who have all experienced cancer treatment themselves and want to help others, however possible.
KCA members meet up at Trinity Baptist Church hall on Poulton Road, near the junction with Dronsfield Road in Fleetwood, every Thursday morning from 10 to noon, for a casual catch-up and to plan the next fundraisers.
Reform UK’s ‘cunning plan’ for Claremont PACT meeting fails before it even begins
By Luke Beardsworth
The first new Claremont PACT meeting did not result in the election of a new chairperson, despite an apparent effort from Reform UK to ensure a sympathetic person in that position.
The PACT meeting was held at St Paul’s Church Hall on Egerton Road at 7pm on Tuesday (27 October) but rather than elect a chair, those who attended were told by police to go away and think about which member of the community would represent them best.
There had been a row ahead of the meeting after messages leaked from a Reform UK Whatsapp announcements group showed recent Claremont by-election candidate Mark Butcher reveal what he described as a ‘cunning plan’.
Here, he encouraged residents from outside of the ward to attend the meeting to ensure that Julie Kelly, landlady of The Corner House Pub, is voted in as chair.
Butcher insists that Kelly is independent but also said in the messages she is ‘a great friend of ours’. He said afterwards that they have done nothing wrong and it is Labour using ‘dirty tricks to make us look bad’. Labour said the plot was ‘disrespectful’.
One message read: “Our plan is not to run a Reform member/candidate as Chair of the meeting mainly because it will be counter productive in the long term due to the fact we have a Labour police commissioner, a Labour leader of the council and a Labour MP that would block anything good that we do.
“Instead, our cunning plan is to run an independent who’s a great friend of ours, Julie Kelly the pub landlady has agreed to stand for the chair position. But we all need to get behind her on Tuesday evening at 7pm.”
Another message in the group reads: “We need as many of you as possible to turn up so we can vote in a new Chair.
“Important: you do not have to live in Claremont Ward to vote. As long as you’re a Blackpool resident, you can take part and cast your vote.”
And it continued: “Let’s make sure Reform voices are in the room and we get the right person for the role.”
Butcher said in response: “We’ve done nothing wrong here, we’re just actively supporting a local candidate who is not from a political party. PACT meetings are not supposed to be political and I don’t want to see them dominated by Labour, they should be independent and I’m just getting behind an independent landlady.
“The fact this has been brought up in this way says to me that some people are worried that Reform is getting stronger and they are the ones using underhand tactics, dirty tricks to try and make us look bad.”
The Whatsapp group has been disbanded following the leaks, The Blackpool Lead understands.