Prominent People in Your Community: Cllr Judi Billing
| Published: 8th August 2007 14:15 |
Judi Billing is a Labour councillor who has lived in Hitchin for 36 years and represented Hitchin's Bearton Ward since 1980. Judi is also Chair of Hitchin Committee.
Date of interview: Friday 29 June 2007.
Where and when were you born?
When I read your interview with Keith Hoskins it reminded me that we are exactly the same age! He is three weeks younger than me and so six years ago we both had our 50th birthdays and had two big parties!
I was born in Paddington in London and was brought up in a flat that my parents rented from a bloke called Mr Rackman who later became the byword for racqueteer landlording very famous in the 50s. My whole childhood was spent in London really, as we were in that flat until I was about eight or nine and then we moved to Maida Vale.
When did you move to Hitchin?
In 1971, just before my first child was born. My first husband got a job at the local college and I'd never even heard of Hitchin really. We got a Greenline bus from North Finchley where we were then living (I was very sick on the bus because I was very pregnant) and we travelled through various bits of Hertfordshire before finishing up in Hitchin on St Mary's Square. When we walked through the cobbly bits I instantly took a liking to it and I haven't lived anywhere else since. So that's 36 years this summer! I met my second husband David in Hitchin and we married 25 years ago.
What do you love most about Hitchin?
I didn't really feel much sense of community in London and so I particularly like Hitchin's size and its sense of community. I also like its historic bits and its difference from other places. There are lots of issues about clone towns at the moment, but actually Hitchin is different from other places as it does still have independent retailers and a market and it still tries to do a range of extraordinarily interesting things like Rhythms of the World and the Triangle Festival.
Where were you educated and what was your very first job?
I was educated at Camden School for Girls in North London, where I was a failure and a rebel and left with three O levels and people completely despairing of me! Then I went to Kilburn Poly, allegedly to do A levels but in fact at that point I married my English lecturer and had some babies. I didn't work anywhere very seriously until I got to Hitchin and did lots of voluntary work through the 70s - I was a Welfare Rights Advisor for the Citizens Advice Bureau, I was a Relate Counsellor and I worked as an Adult Literacy Tutor in the further education field.
How did you get into politics?
My political background stems from my family background. My father was an emigre from Hitler's Berlin. He was a very strongly political person and so I was politically aware and campaigning at a very young age. I can even remember launching political campaigns in the school playground in Paddington!
Has Bearton always been a totally Labour ward?
No. It was a three-member Conservative ward until 1980 when I won the first Labour seat. We then won another seat in 1986 and a third in 1987. For the 20 years since it has been Labour, but I don't believe that there are such things as safe seats. I think you have to work for them.
You've represented Bearton Ward for 27 years and you've been Chair of Hitchin Committee for seven. What would you say are your biggest achievements during that time?
Small childrens' playgrounds where dogs aren't allowed may sound really small and daft, but that's one of them. Twenty years ago when I first started talking about this I was laughed at. "What about the rights of dog owners?" people said. Nobody would dream of laughing at this issue now though. Children have gone blind as a result of toxocara after playing near dog shit.
Plus we stopped people building on Ransom's Rec. There was a leader of the council who wanted to build on it in order to pay for the swimming pool, but he managed to find other ways of paying for the pool in the end.
Apart from that I've been quite pleased with some of the work I've done as Chair of Hitchin Committee.
What does your role as Chair of Hitchin Committee involve?
To me the most important part is finding ways of connecting with people and actually engaging in conversations with the communities.
We've set up all-party surgeries on the first Saturday of every month - I think that when people have got problems they're really not interested in the politics of the councillor they are going to go and see and so we do that all together (county councillors, district councillors, Labour councillors, Conservative councillors and Lib Dem councillors), which I'm pleased with.
The other way we do this is through the Town Talks which take place an hour before every Hitchin Committee meeting - we used to have nine Committee meetings a year, but the council has cut this down to six. The Town Talks are a complete free for all and it's my job to manage them and make sure that everything that people want to talk about gets talked about in a very short space of time. We started the Town Talks about four years ago and people like them - we've had attendances anywhere from 30 to 300 when there's been a particularly huge issue around.
How is the Chair of the Committee elected?
Councillors elect the Chair annually. It's complicated and it is about politics because whichever party has the most number of councillors in the town is likely to be chairing that local committee. Hitchin has 13 councillors on its committee. There are five Conservatives, five Labour and three Liberal Democrats and so it's now actually hung, but the Lib Dems supported me continuing as Chair and so that's how I come to still be doing it even though Labour haven't got a proper majority.
Is it quite unusual for a town to be split in such a way?
In Noth Herts it is. All the other towns are quite clearly of the ruling party. And one of the things that is really difficult about my work, both for me and for the council I think, is that I am an opposition member so I'm not part of the ruling administration. And the council don't like that very much really, if truth be known. I think I'm thought of by the council as a whole to be a bit of a nuisance, although I think this is probably a good thing and very useful for the people of Hitchin!
Hitchin is very unique in the way it organises its democracy and I think this is because Hitchin is quite a rebellious place. This May the assumption was that after 10 years of Labour government and with Cameron doing awfully well, the Labour party in Hitchin would collapse and politics would be tidy again. But the people of Hitchin just said no, sod that, we like our complications. If you can argue that ‘a people' says anything. But that's how the voting was.
There wasn't actually much change at the May elections at all. Labour lost a seat in Walsworth Ward which we expected to lose but was nevertheless still very sad. And the Conservatives lost their seat in Highbury - the very good high-profile councillor Sarah Wren who lost her seat because of Hitchin's antipathy to things that they feel are not being listened to.
What would you say are the biggest issues at the moment?
Current big issues include the Town Hall, local toilets, Churchgate and the Triangle Festival.
In terms of the Town Hall, despite Hitchin Committee lining up to tell the council what we thought it has decided to start talking to an organisation about taking it over. So although this issue is one that is moving forward, it is going in the wrong direction. We're still going to put up a fight though.
The Triangle Festival is a lovely community event that the council's licensing department has now said can't happen. The council is saying that the Triangle Festival Committee hadn't complied with all the things that they had to comply with for health and safety I think. I don't have the detail, but my argument is that it's the job of the council officers to enable and facilitate and help the organisers to get it right because community groups who put events like this on are amateurs not professionals and they need help to get it right rather than just being told that they have got it wrong. Venues had to be reorganised because council property could no longer be used.
The current neglect and decline of the market is of course is another major issue and so is knocking down historic buildings and allowing planning to build horrible flats everywhere.
In your statement for the 2007 local elections you said that you would like to see a more modern approach to residents' parking. What would this entail?
I would like to see the council working closely with residents in some of the most difficult residential areas for parking, to look at a far wider range of options for parking, and maybe recognise that residents' parking schemes are a service of the council, rather than stinging local residents for vast sums of money, for the right to a street parking permit.
You also stated that you would like to see an improvement in leisure facilities, particularly for young people. What would you ideally like to see?
We have been waiting since the closure of the Caldecott Centre for a proper, multi-use purpose-built facility particularly aimed at meeting the needs of younger children and young teenagers. We need swift progress on this, now.
What do you like best about being a councillor?
The moments when you do actually manage to achieve things. And connecting with people because that's the sort of person I am - I'm quite outgoing and I like facilitating conversation, which I do as part of both my full-time job and as a voluntary councillor.
I like individual casework with people where we can make things happen that wouldn't otherwise happen, which is what my role is all about. Plus I like problem-solving. Communities aren't simple one-faceted things. In Hitchin there are loads of different communities with different needs and sometimes they don't agree with one another.
What do you like the least?
I take things so personally! So whilst it's alright for me to be being a nuisance, if people actually treat me as if I'm a nuisance I don't like it all and take it far too personally. When I do it it's legitimate politics, but when other people do it it's hurtful and personal!
What is the most difficult side to the job?
Trying to balance everyone's needs, particularly with this tightrope that I walk with Hitchin Committee. Trying to take 13 councillors of 3 different political parties to consensus on everything is hard work to start with let alone translating that into having the influence we need on the main council. We can come to a consensus in Hitchin about what's right for Hitchin, but then very often at the moment feel like we're banging out heads against a brick wall when things move to the next stage.
We do things all-party in Hitchin so I don't understand why we have to be treated like that by the council as a whole. I think we get treated by a lot of kneejerk reaction by the council as a whole over things that actually could be done in a way that both satisfied the overall objectives of the council and the needs of the people of Hitchin.
It's actually been a bad few weeks, I think because of the number of issues in Hitchin that I mentioned earlier. The local vibrant organisations expect their local councillors to be able to get things done and get very frustrated when we can't because however hard we work on issues they still get blocked. These are organisations such as Hitchin Forum, Hitchin Historical Society and Keep Hitchin Special. There's millions of them in Hitchin. It's that sort of place.
Also harping back to what we were saying about the fact that the Tories expected to take Hitchin and have it work smoothly again. The Tories are so cross! Not the Hitchin Conservative councillors who are working really well with us now, but the rest of the council is taking it out on me a bit. It's not my fault! Well, it is a bit because you campaign don't you so to that extent it's my fault. But it's not actually my fault that Sarah Wren lost Highbury Ward.
So that's why it's a bit tough. I can be part of my community and have people like Keith Hoskins and Ellie Clark and others understand where I'm coming from, what I'm doing and what I'm trying to do, but then I can go and visit cabinet and be treated I think quite badly as I was on Tuesday. ‘Oh God, I suppose we'll have to listen to you' is what it feels like they're thinking.
Can you describe an average day in your role as a councillor?
My day is about having a full-time professional role at the Improvement & Development Agency and fitting in my council stuff around it first thing in the morning or after work. Luckily I have an employer who understands local government like no other employer in the world!
My hours are hugely long but they're flexible. I've had a number of 18 hour days this week. Tuesday was one of them. I was on the 7.02am to London and went to Wembley Stadium for a graduation ceremony for a load of the councillors I work with at my day job because we run leadership academy programmes. I then went into my office in Farringdon for a few hours before returning to North Herts, except that the floods had closed the train line so my husband had to come to Luton to get me. Or was that Monday?! If it was Monday I then had to go to a special meeting of Hitchin Committee in Letchworth to talk about the Town Hall again or if it was Tuesday evening I had to be at a cabinet meeting that didn't finish until about 11.45pm! So Monday and Tuesday were two interminably long days and even as I'm telling you about them they're merging into one really!
What do you do at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA)?
I am Head of Programmes for Leadership. That means I'm responsible for a whole range of national programmes, courses and modules that can be delivered in local councils to help both councillors and council officers improve their leadership skills.
I've worked for the IDeA for nearly seven years. It all came about because after I did all the voluntary work I mentioned earlier, I ended up working in further and higher education. I was Head of Student Services at two further education colleges in Hertfordshire and then at Middlesex University. So my entire background was in teaching, learning, supporting people and counselling.
In 1999 the IDeA was set up and I saw advertisements for jobs which enabled me to combine all my teaching and learning experience with politics and local government so it was heaven. I started work there in 2000 and I've had five different jobs since. I'm there really as a consultant now. It's all been fantastically interesting, but also either really helpful in my work as a councillor and with my colleagues or sometimes incredibly irritating again. And I think sometimes that's also why people either pick my brains because they know I know what's going on nationally or think "Oh God, she's trying to be clever again!"
If you were prime minister for a day what would you do?
I'm not sure I could achieve anything in a day. I've seen prime ministers who can't achieve what they really want to in 10 years! If I had a super power and could change anything it would be world poverty - the spectacle of millions of people dying of poverty in a super rich world is absurd.
Tony or Gordon?
I don't know yet. Different people. Different times. I think Tony then Gordon is a good thing because I think Tony Blair was the person to get a Labour government elected and convince Middle England that it was an OK thing to vote Labour. I think his social reform has been desperately underestimated, such as family tax credit and some of the huge regeneration projects. But I also know that he went out on some limbs too far, mostly to do with Iraq, and so now it is time for that transition.
If you weren't in the field of politics what would you do?
It would always be people-centred like counselling and teaching. Plus I'd spend a hell of a lot more time with my family. I quite often have to work weekends unfortunately as I run programmes for councillors all over the country, some of which have to be at weekends. Plus I have the privilege of going to all the party political conferences because of my day job and they're sometimes at weekends too. Being able to go to Conservative party conferences certainly gets the old antennae working!
This weekend I'll be at home though and I'll hopefully get to see some of the children and see what's happening with Hitchin's Triangle Festival.
What did you do today to help reduce you carbon footprint?
I remembered to have my jute shopping bags in the back of my car in order to use as little packaging as possible. Does that relate to my carbon footprint? I think it probably does a little bit. But I'm so bad about cars that I'm really embarrassed even to be asked the question frankly. I drive a very, very naughty car - a Mazda MX5 sports car!
What is your favourite area of Hitchin?
I love Bearton ward where I lived for 25 years. I love the tiny streets of very close old housing which have now become really fashionable. They have awful parking problems though because they weren't ever meant to have garages or cars
When I first lived in Hitchin I had a house in Grove Rd, which I then couldn't sell because people didn't like old houses. I also had a house on Walsworth Rd that was hard to sell. Now people are just doing beautiful things to those streets.
Where is your favourite place to dine in Hitchin?
I love Bridge Street Bistro best, but I don't want to upset any other parts of the restaurant community!
What is your favourite local event?
It's got to be Rhythms of the World really because it's wonderful and because my son who is a wonderful blues guitarist has been very much involved in being a performer there in previous years. This year he's doing the Sunday night at the Sir John Barleycorn pub.
How do you let your hair down?
By having a very stupid car and driving it quite fast when I can! By travelling and slopping about in flip flops in a village in the south of Spain to the east of Malaga. By not having to wear power suits, although I don't do this very much anymore anyway because I can't bear it. And by baking, which I love - my family put in orders occasionally for raspberry and chocolate muffins!
I don't think I do let my hair down as such. I just look for ways of escape and relaxation and travel.
And I do go shopping a lot. I love shopping. I've got a real thing for shopping malls. I know they're crowded, but I find that they are places to be alone because although there's lots of people you don't have to talk to any of them. So that's my way of being alone. I can be alone at Brent Cross or Milton Keynes or wherever.
Do you have any hidden talents?
I don't think I hide my light under any bushel really. I'm such a loudmouth that I tell people about my talents, such as I cook rather well...
Have you ever won a trophy or medal?
I've got a certificate for the 25-yard breaststroke that I did at school when I was about eight years old, but unfortunately no-one else turned up for the race so I was the only person swimming!
If your picture could be placed next to any word in the dictionary what would it be?
Empathetic.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Try not to take everything personally!
What is your favourite quote?
J F Kennedy's one that he said at his inaugural speech:
"Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
If you could invite three people to dinner who would they be?
Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton.
I'm just fascinated by charisma and naughtiness in equal proportions and the way he has got away with it in a sense. I heard him speak at the Labour Party Conference last year and I still find him utterly overwhelming. He's hugely charismatic and I'm drawn to charisma, although I also know it's a dangerous thing and can be ill-used. I don't think Bill Clinton did use it badly though except possibly occasionally with women!
On reflection if Bill Clinton is secured then I'd quite like him to bring Nelson Mandela and BB King with him...
Which prominent person in Hitchin should I interview next and why?
Whoever is leading the Voice of Hitchin Youth, as anybody else I name to you to do with local organisations will be white, middle aged and middle class. Or go to the Sikh Temples on Wilbury Way and Bearton Avenue and talk to whoever they nominate about the work of the Sikh Temple community.
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