A lively if not "bumpy" parish council meeting ...
... inspires an attempt at political sketch writing because, sometimes, it's all there is.
Levity is a good thing. There’s a time and place for it. Reflecting on how to go about reporting on a recent Ilkley Town Council meeting – the angle, the format – we thought it would work well as a lengthy political sketch. Sometimes you have to find the humour in things. This, it seemed, needed it. We hope you enjoy. Normal business to resume next week.
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It was a packed crowd at the latest Ilkley Town Council full council meeting. And by packed we mean 20 plus members of the public and most of the 14 parish councillors. Not councillors Harry Burns or Karl Milner though. Give us a shout if you’ve seen ‘em.
What on earth was going on you might ask? It was a sunny summer Monday evening, after all. Wimbledon was on, there were Pimms to be had, but here they all were, sacrificing their end of day downtime for a spot of civic participation. Gold medals all around.
While it wasn’t a dictionary definition extraordinary meeting – we’d just had one of those about free parking being at risk of being snatched from the town by Bradford Council’s beleaguered leadership, who have been described by Robbie Moore, the hardest working MP in history no less, as a slow-motion car crash in action – it was, for the attendees, more than your average full council meeting fare.
Meaning they weren’t here just to listen to the usual lot (sorry councillors, but true). There was a special guest in town, the one and only David Kirkpatrick, an expert, according to his LinkedIn profile, in, among other road-related thingymabobs, “traffic signs, road marking layouts, traffic calming, residents’ parking”.
If there was anyone who could set the record straight on Ilkley’s laboured 20mph scheme, it was him. It was, as we’ll see, wishful thinking. That record is more warped than ever. Poor lad. He could have been sipping some of his five a day watching the tennis than have to sit through a parish council meeting where many, it seemed, objected to his way of seeing things.
The usual formalities out of the way, the evening got off to a strong start for the pro-bump crowd. Susan, who noted that she was visually impaired, said she was “pleased to be able to cross the roads more confidently” now that traffic appeared to be travelling more slowly. Job’s a good’un. Well done. Someone order some champagne. Kirkpatrick might have thought he was in for an easy ride. Alas not.
Derek, for instance, didn’t agree. He said he’d got a notification that the project was done and dusted and that no remedial work was necessary. “I would contend that that's not true,” he said. “There are a number of places around town where speed bumps are not protected by a double yellow line, so people are allowed to park vehicles on speed bumps. This restricts the road dramatically … it's supposed to increase safety [but] it’s actually decreasing safety.”
Nice one Des. We hear you. Actually, cars parked on bumps – or to the side of them – are also a tad irritating. At the end of the day, if we’re going to have speed bumps, we’d really rather be able to travel over them cleanly. Not in the middle. That never seems to work, however slow you go. So, naturally, we sometimes feel like we have to go on the other side of the road to make driving over them a bit more palatable.
The problem with that is that we’re driving on the other side of the road! And last time we looked, this is the “mighty” UK and not stuck up controlling Europe. Driving on the left is a sacred, inalienable right. So, viva freedom, viva British Independence Day, viva la Brexit!
To note, that last bit was said for rhetorical purposes. The Ilkley Journal, had it been around in 2016 would have backed remain in its editorial. Phew, glad that’s cleared up. Imagine if you thought otherwise? Sacre bleu!
It was time to get technical at the full council meeting. Cue Paul. “Information has been circulated from Bradford Highways that the 20mph zone in Ilkley and Ben Rhydding has been delivered as intended as of 2 June 2025,” he said. “A resident survey of traffic calming features in May 2025 – and updated 6 July 2025 – finds that there are still major areas that do not conform to Department of Transport regulations for the number and distribution of traffic calming features. So the scheme is not complete.”
Ha, ha. Eat humble pie Kirkpatrick – you’re not the only expert in the room. You say it’s complete, we say no, sir, you are mistaken. It was time for Kirkpatrick to take centre stage. The headline act had arrived.
“As of 2 June, we were satisfied that the checks that we've been making over the last several months confirmed that everything that we intended to install had been installed in the location that it needed to be in,” he responded.
“From an enforcement point of view – and I know this is an issue that's cropped up on several occasions – a 20mph zone should be broadly self enforcing, so there should be no reliance on enforcement. And when police colleagues have attended this as well, they've reiterated the point that they would not be taking active enforcement.”
It was Craig’s turn. He, too, didn’t think much of the scheme. It doesn’t make sense, he said, wasn’t thought through properly, he continued, feels like an act of road vandalism to Ilkley’s once easy to travel over, decidedly non-bumpy roads that now feel like they belong to a bygone, gas-guzzling era, he concluded. When driving used to be fun.
Kirkpatrick didn’t get a chance to respond. The mayor was quick to move on to the next speaker. After all, what else could he say? You, the naysayers, say it doesn’t conform, whereas I and my colleagues say that it does.
And we could go on and on until the cows come home but it won’t change anything. The bumps are installed, the job is complete, the bill is pending. Yes, yes, but this is a democracy. We shall speak, we shall be heard and we shall not rest until victory is ours. The struggle is real. The anti-bump crowd was in full swing. Was there no-one else in favour of the scheme?
Luckily there was. A few moments later – a few SpongeBob SquarePants meme moments later, to be clear – the pro-bump crowd chirped up. Paul, who described himself as a resident-motorist-pedistrian-(occasional)cyclist – good for you Paul! – said he welcomed the 20mph zone.
“I'm relieved and much happier with the lower speed of traffic on the streets of the town now where I live,” he explained. “Speed bumps make people drive slower, and then, as a result, they're making the town a safer place.”
Emboldened, another resident chipped in. He wasn’t just happy with the scheme, no sir. In fact, he thought that it could be bigger, better, bumpier. This was radical behaviour. Even the pro-bump crowd has limits when it comes to bumps.
“I think the scheme has been beneficial in terms of reducing speeds. It makes the streets safer for children, old people, pedestrians and cyclists … if anything, there are some areas where I'm surprised that traffic calming hasn't been put in.”
We were now close to 20 minutes in. Some of the councillors seemed to be getting restless. This bleeding Pandora’s box. When will the nightmare ever end? Why can’t the public just sit there quietly and observe us, as if we were animals in a zoo? When will we ever get to more pressing matters, such as the bedding plants and meeting room costs and libraries! We have an agenda, we must stick to it! Without rules, we are savages! Burns and Milner, it seemed, had played another blinder.
Then there was a bit of an interlude. The public had had their say on the 20mph zone. The town councillors would have theirs. This brief break from traffic calming measures included an update from councillor Loy.
The cheeky folk at Starbucks, the latest non-independent entry to Ilkley’s food and drinks scene, had put up a nine-metre high illuminated sign that has seemingly been designed to catch the attention of punters from all four corners of England, let alone the town, without permission. So, it’ll have to be taken down, he said. In your face Starbucks but, seeing as we’re here, we’ll have tiramisu cream iced oat shaken espresso thank you very much.
It also featured Councillor Brown, who had helpfully posed next to the Starbucks sign to show that it was indeed very tall – and, in turn, that she was comparably very small (indeed, philosophically so, aren’t we all just tiny, tiny specks of atoms just trying to make something of our lives on this tiny blue dot in this vast, expanding universe?).
She gave an update. It was short and sweet. And then we were back to Kirkpatrick. The show must go on! He reiterated that the scheme had been wrapped up as of the beginning of June so it had ticked all their boxes. Try telling that to the anti-bump lobby.
“The next step for us is to commission a road safety audit, which is in line with the section 278 agreement. The road safety audit is not a design or regulatory compliance check, but it is rather a view to look at the design itself and where risk might have been incurred,” he said.
That should be done in the next month, he added. Take your bets now to see if that happens. Once that’s done, then, voila, Ilkley Town Council will bag itself a nice completion certificate that it can frame and nail to a wall for all, including future generations, to see. It’s our proudest achievement as of late, some people might say our proudest achievement ever (if you’re doing a Donald Trump voice, well done).
Once that’s in the bag, Kirkpatrick went on to say, it’ll begin a 12-month maintenance period “during which any defects with the works would be addressed”. Defects you say, say the anti-bump crew? It’s all defective! Just get rid of the bumps and problem solved. Like duh.
It was then time to talk money. The cost of this big, beautiful scheme? For now, £150,845. Not the final bill, mind, as the road safety audit will bump (yeah, we know) that up by a few thousand. And then the town council will have to fork over half of the final cost. Look, it might be one of the biggest expenses in the council’s history, but you could argue they’ve actually saved money. It was originally priced at £187,500. Numbers, they’re funny like that.
It was now time for the councillors to interrogate question Kirkpatrick. Up first was Spence: “I think the residents who through the precept will have paid this contribution for this scheme are entitled to know whether they've got an enforceable scheme … So do we have a scheme that's enforceable? Yes or no?”
Yes, Kirkpatrick responded. “A sign is classed as a traffic calming feature … it's quite clear as you enter the zone that it is a zone. So we do have various traffic calming features along the way and they've been targeted according to the data.”
Spence didn’t think much of it. He felt that Bradford Council didn’t think traffic regulations applied to them. Bradford bleeding Council. Does what it wants, when it wants, how it wants. Kirkpatrick disagreed. Some say potatoes, some say spuds.
Next up was Loy. We would like a breakdown of costs as they are and as they were so that we can compare them, he said. Why, for instance, is the bill lower than originally estimated? I’ll see what I can do, said Kirkpatrick. You do that, Kirkpatrick. You do that.
It was then time for Cheater. She noted safety concerns about the bumps and queried how residents could get in touch with Kirkpatrick to express their concerns. He said they could email him. Rumour has had it that he is still making his way through these emails even to this day. If they were paper letters, they would be some nine-metres in height. Starbucks, anyone?
Councillor Butler shifted the focus to households next to bumps. It was a canny manoeuvre (there we go again). Some residents, he said, are “suffering from noise, vibration and damage to the property”. It’s disrupting sleep. For both adults and kids alike. He queried whether these particular sites could be tested. It’s not like it’s rocket science, after all?
David went into full-on expert mode. “There is a lot of research which was done, certainly, in the kind of formative days of traffic calming around noise and vibration … And the general findings were that they do not have any – or very, very minimal, interceptible levels of vibration on properties.” The public gasped. There was quiet outrage. This is Ilkley. We have decorum.
Next up was Allon, who waxed lyrical about the scheme. We hope more people will be able to cross the road more safely, as well as walk and cycle more, and be more active as a result of it, she said. Nice sentiment Allon and you’re not wrong – we ought to be spending more time pounding and peddling our way around town and life – but perhaps it’s a little shortsighted.
We certainly haven’t seen a noticeable uptick in walkers and cyclists in and around Ilkley, although the editor of this fine paper has recently bought himself a bike and can be seen cycling through town trying not to get sweaty. Plus, Ilkley is full of oldies who like driving their cars very slowly. Fast and Furious 124 will not be coming to these streets.
Brown concurred with Allon. The roads in town slower, safer and quieter, she said. Perhaps she was forgetting that the roads in Ilkley already seemed slower, safer and quieter. Who knows. Maybe we’re all living in alternative versions of Ilkley. She added that her neighbours who have young children really appreciated the scheme being in place.
Gibson then saw an opportunity to move things along. It was now 8.15pm ish. There was also the idea of introducing a public piano in Ilkley to talk about. Because pianos will right wrongs. They’ll level up society. Reduce the cost of living. Free us from stagnation! Here, here. There’s nothing quite like a bit of Chopin’s nocturne in e flat major to get us animated. So, on that note, let’s just agree on paying the bill.
Spence was having none of it. “I think as a direct consequence of this meeting, there's a risk that needs addressing, which is, we're hearing a fundamental difference of opinion about the enforceability of the scheme,” he said. “And I think we would be remiss if we didn't take some legal advice on whether it is or isn't enforceable.”
He referred to a risk assessment that he had put together and cited some substantial data he had come across. Data is, of course, good. No data is, in turn, bad. Brown pounced. The risk assessment in question, she queried, it’s based on information gathered by a group of residents?
No, said Spence. Okay, the preamble then? Sure. “Why I question your document is that it has been written on the basis of information from some research completed by a group of men who have been actively opposed to this traffic scheme since way before the first spade was in the ground,” Brown followed up. “So therefore I question how helpful it is as an objective exercise?”
Spence jousted back. “The risk assessment is about whether we either pay when we get a bill or we don't – and there are a set of consequences for both of those outcomes. And that was my attempt to simply guess what those outcomes, those consequences might. It had nothing to do with anybody's research.”
It was now time for Simmonds to be heard. “I think this whole issue about being enforceable is a red herring. I truly believe the scheme is enforceable,” she said. “The language of the agreement doesn't say that the council is going to deliver an enforceable scheme.
“The word enforceable doesn't appear anywhere in the agreement. What we have is a binding contract with Bradford that when they produce a completion certificate, we have 30 days or 28 days to pay it. And if we don’t pay it, we suffer a penalty clause.”
Cash-strapped councils certainly don’t want to be paying any unnecessary expenses. So, it would, logically, be madness for Ilkley Town Council to go down this route, right? Although, what about that “extra” bit of cash now seemingly leftover from the original quote?! Tremendous. Problem solved.
There was then a bit of back of forth. Loy talked about how much the interest rate would be equivalent to (he suggested around £20 a day). Butler talked about the contract being binding on both sides and that it appeared that Bradford Council was in breach of what was agreed.
Then it was back to Simmonds. And OMG, she was done. “I think it's now time that people just let this go,” she said. “The scheme is in, the town has moved on, but there's just a small group of people who still want to fight about it, and that's what we're listening to.”
It’s a point of view. Accurate? Debateable. Also, like Brexit, for the unforgiving remainers, if something is worth fighting for, you darn well fight for it. Nine years might have passed, the damage may have been done, but put it to bed? No thanks.
Kearns had a different take to Simmonds. He was so bored of this issue (yikes). Taking a subtle swipe at the authors of the research that had been cited – ”I respect the endeavours and the initiative of the gentlemen who've been out, presumably with trundle wheels and tape measures to do the survey” – he asked, begged, it seemed, if the council, for the love of this town(!), could just move on and discuss the rest of the business. Those poor bedding plants, that poor public piano. When will they have their moment?
Then it all got a bit confusing. Wording about proposals. Enforceability. Stuff like that. Maybe we were getting tired, complacent, drifting. It was late evening. The editor hadn’t quite had his dinner and had forget his reusable water bottle. He didn’t even have any old-fashioned sweets to hand. Woe oh woe.
Still, unlike Kearns, he certainly wasn't bored. If this is local local politics, we’ll have some more of it. This was as interesting, entertaining and fascinating as parish council meetings have been. And you know why? Because issues like this matter. And because issues like this reveal how bad local government can be.
It also points to the undeniable fact that politics at every level needs to be improved, modernised and diversified. We’re now 25 years into the new millennium and still it feels like we’re stepping back into a bygone, 20th century era characterised by the arcane, the parochial and the procedural.
Anyways, where were we? Ah yes, confused. There was a vote on whether the council should seek an independent opinion on enforceability, with the chair, Gibson, using her casting vote, squashing that idea. If she’d had a gavel to hand, it would have been a good time to use it. But she didn’t.
After some more back and forth, with the members of the public in attendance now a little broken by the experience – and you can see why populist parties like Reform who market themselves as disruptors of the orthodoxy find support among dissatisfied voters – we finally moved on from this most contentious of local issues.
This meeting could have gone on forever. Maybe the debate will. Maybe there is no getting over the introduction of speed bumps, traffic calming measures, 20mph zones. It was time for an encore. Kirkpatrick was still here, unable to slip away, might as well get your money’s worth. Whether he was as bored as Kearns was anyone’s guess.
He talked more about enforceability but we won’t go over the details of that because we’re now over 3,000 words in and it’s time to make a cup of tea. Plus it feels like a nice time to finish. Plus there are other stories that need our attention (we’re a very small organisation, so do help us do more of it). Plus, this was the end of this part of the meeting.
Loy stepped in not long after Kirkpatrick had finished, managing to kindly get him excused. He jumped at the chance, as did most of the public. We stayed a little longer. We’re obliged as journalists, where possible, to put ourselves through feats of epic endurance (you’re welcome).
However, when a break was suggested not long after and was agreed, we and some other commendable stragglers took it as an opportunity to make our own exit. The night was done. And as for bedding plants, libraries and pianos? Who knows.