WHAT has Dorset Council ever done for Weymouth and Portland?

The answer is “quite a lot” according to Cabinet member and Preston Cllr Tony Ferrari.

He rattled off a list of projects which have been completed, or planned, in response to claims from campaigners that Dorset Council has neglected the area.

Said Professor Philip Marfleet, who has published research into the area’s decline: “Will Dorset Council finally accept responsibility for its negligence in addressing these issues and undertake to join, without delay, a task force to focus actively upon remedial policies?”

But his question was side-swiped by Cllr Ferrari who declined the invitation, claiming it was typical to want to keep talking about things, rather than do something.

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"This is Weymouth at its worst, Lots of talk and no action," he said.

He told the full council meeting on Thursday evening that the authority had taken up the quayside rail tracks and set out the semi-pedestrian area, moved more than a hundred social workers and support staff to the town, obtained £100m of Government cash for works on the harbour walls, improved the rail station forecourt, opened a new children’s home, helped underpin the collapsing Old Castle Road, fitted hundreds of solar panels to several public buildings and worked with developers on 500 new homes at Littlemoor and on schemes which would boost the economy at Osprey Quay and Mercery Road.

“The recovery started when this council was elected (May 2019) with responsibility for the area’s future” claimed Cllr Ferrari.

Dorset Trades Union Council, in a statement to the meeting, said that the south Dorset economy had been in decline since the 1990s “leaving a deprived community dependent on low-paid, insecure jobs.”

The organisation claimed that Dorset Council has “repeatedly dismissed proposals by Dorset Trades Union Council (DTUC) and Weymouth and Portland Action on Wages (WeyPAW) to address the resultant poverty and deprivation” and challenged the council to provide substantiated evidence to prove what it had done to help create good, well-paid jobs in Weymouth and Portland, or persuade local employers to improve pay.

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Professor Marfleet also accused the council of doing little for the area: “Dorset Council has on several occasions declined to recognise the acute economic and social problems in Weymouth & Portland. It seems that councillors of the majority group wish to avert their eyes from the reality,” he said, adding that the proposed Investment Zone, if approved, would do nothing to solve the problems.

"The last thing we need in Weymouth and Portland is a bonfire of planning rules."

He claimed the end result of a lack of action would be young people continuing to leave, many never to return, with an ageing population with not enough people to care for them.

“In February 2019 Councillor Gary Suttle told this meeting in a personal statement that for decades the Council and its predecessor had failed to provide policies that could address economic decline and social deprivation, and that inadequate infrastructure held back development. Almost three years later there’s been no progress. Weymouth & Portland is still among the coldest of “cold spots” in the UK for social mobility, with levels of family poverty that shame us all,” he said.

After the meeting Professor Marfleet said the response from the council proved the ruling Conservative group "remain in denial about the realities of economic decline and social deprivation in Weymouth & Portland. "Interestingly, I was heckled by Councillor Louie O'Leary, who had to be silenced by the chair. He was angry that we had produced the report and that we had the temerity to suggest that the Council should make policy changes... "It seems to us that the majority group close their eyes and stuff their ears when we and others describe the alarming situation in Weymouth & Portland. As the cost of living crisis worsens and we face a challenging winter many of the most vulnerable families will struggle. Multiple deprivation is South Dorset is likely to intensify: the Council - or its leaders - look the other way. What a contrast to the appreciative messages in relation to the report that we've received from local community organisations and a number of Dorset Councillors."