Spalding West councillor says he will be always be a champion for South Holland but has to be ‘realistic’ in new senior role at Lincolnshire County Council

A councillor who will soon be taking on a senior county leadership role says he will always be a ‘champion’ for his area - but did not want to make any promises he couldn’t keep.

Coun Rob Gibson is due to become the deputy leader of Lincolnshire County Council in a few weeks after being appointed to the same position in the authority’s Reform UK group earlier this week. He will be working alongside Tattershall Castle councillor Sean Matthews who is group leader.

The right-wing insurgent party swept to power last week after winning 44 out of 70 seats on the authority and Dame Andrea Jenkyns has been elected as the first Greater Lincolnshire Mayor after receiving 42% of the vote.

Coun Gibson has confirmed that the new leadership of the county council will be ‘definitely independent’ of Reform’s Boston and Skegness MP Richard Tice and Ms Jenkyns - who has aimed to cut ‘wasteful spending’ across the county.

The Spalding West representative also sits on South Holland District Council where he was the leader of the South Holland Independents until defecting to Reform with four other councillors earlier this year.

Coun Gibson said: “I am honoured to be voted in by nearly half of the party to take on that position (deputy leader). It is a lot to take on and something I am going to give my best and it is nice to have one of the senior members of LCC in South Holland.

“I am going to make sure we look after our part of the county.”

While councillors Gibson and Matthews will not officially take the reins until later this month at the next full council meeting, the group has started to look at the authority’s portfolio roles.

Coun Gibson said that some of the portfolios are ‘being taken to pieces and rebuilt’ as some of the previous roles were ‘suited to the personalities that took them on’.

He said: “We are trying to put things together that fit together.”

We did ask Coun Gibson what his priorities would be for the Spalding and South Holland area. He responded: “I don’t want to make any promises that I can’t follow through, I won’t do that.

“My first priority is to make sure that Lincolnshire continues on a good trajectory, a lot of our services are good to excellent and they need to stay that, at least that good.

“Obviously I will always be a champion for Spalding and South Holland but I am also in a position where we need to be thinking about the whole of the county.”

Spalding Western Relief Road is one county council project which has always sparked some controversy.

It has been mothballed by the county council as the southern and middle sections are unfunded. The northern section - with it’s five arm roundabout and £7,948,556 ‘bridge to nowhere’ - was completed last year.

The council estimates that cost of the final two sections is £50million to £60million and recently earmarked £27.7million for the southern section.

Coun Gibson, who appeared in a promotional video with the mayor near the relief road during the election campaign, said the project needs ‘an awful lot of money’ which is unallocated.

He said: “We have to see what the future could be for that.”

The councillor had also previously called for a footbridge to be placed over the A16 at the revamped McDonald’s roundabout to help people get safely across.

This bridge was initially included in the plans but later removed due to the £3million cost - which Coun Gibson had previously vowed to keep fighting for.

Coun Gibson said: “As the ward member that is always something I have championed but I have always been acutely aware that a good couple of million is needed to achieve it. I have to to be realistic, the money has got to come from somewhere. As much as I am a champion for this area I have to be realistic.”

He also stated that the new county council leadership will be independent of the mayor and MP Mr Tice but will ‘work together to achieve the best outcomes for the county’.

During her election campaign, Dame Andrea made repeated promises to create a Lincolnshire DOGE, in a clear nod to the US Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) department headed by Elon Musk, in a bid to root out ‘wasteful spending’.

Coun Gibson said: “I don’t like to be told what to do.”

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