This week has seen our Conservative opposition ask for a special full council meeting on the Labour group’s decision to re-open front-facing services at Marmion House. This meeting will take place on Monday 14 October 2024.

We have set out the rationale for this decision many times, including in this column, but we welcome the opportunity to do it again. It’s important that decisions are fully scrutinised, and all councillors have the chance to have their say.

The decision to re-open a front desk at Marmion House was at the heart of our pledges at the local election in May, where we gained a clear mandate from the people of Tamworth. We arrived at this policy after talking to local people over the past few years, on the doorstep, at meetings, advice surgeries, from letters to us and during our everyday conversations with residents.

What we heard consistently from the vast majority of residents was that an accessible, functioning facility for face-to-face services at Marmion House was well needed, for residents to access and navigate information about services and have proper two-way conversations to resolve sometimes complex issues, which can be difficult to achieve purely online. For us, it’s about equality of access to services for all our residents.

We heard this, we listened and now we’ve acted quickly. We are extremely proud that we’ve been able to make this decision so quickly after taking control of the council in May. And we hope to have the doors open by the New Year, after some refurbishment work to improve the health and safety of the space. Significant credit needs to go to officers across the council who have worked hard with us to make this happen.

The Conservative group have accused us of wasting council taxpayers’ money. But we see providing services like the front desk as a key part of our contract with the people of Tamworth, and the costings are stacking up as an effective use of resources.

The Tory group is also challenging our proposals to move the council meetings back to Marmion House and explore new community uses for the Town Hall. I will ensure that I give feedback via this column after the meeting.

In other news, we recently held the first meeting of Tamworth Strategic Partnership, which will work to improve collaboration across the borough and the quality of life for residents. It will bring together representatives from health and social care, Staffordshire police, fire and rescue, public health partners and faith and voluntary groups.

I also wanted to mention the opening of the new playground at Beauchamp Road in Hockley. Special thanks go to former councillor Daniel Maycock and other ward councillors for their hard work securing additional funding and our council officers for making this happen.