Cllr Darren Aitchison BEM

22/01/2026

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who joined us at tonight’s Extraordinary Town Council meeting. I truly appreciate your willingness to attend, especially given the short notice.

Balancing my roles as Chair of Governors, Town Councillor, and Deputy Mayor can be challenging, and I want to be open about how I’ve been feeling. During the meeting, I spoke honestly about my thoughts and the current situation. Recently, I’ve reflected deeply on my position within the Local Governing Body and even considered stepping down. However, my belief in our school’s mission and the remarkable progress we’ve made over the years has inspired me to continue serving from within.

Our school is a cornerstone of our community, and I am passionate about supporting its ongoing growth. I know that together, with the Governors, staff, and especially our students, we can keep moving forward. The school deserves strong advocates, and I am committed to being one of them.

As the only high school in our town, it’s up to all of us to help it reach its full potential. Thank you for your continued support and for sharing in this important journey.

22/01/2026

Our MP speaking in Parliment this morning about Felixstowe School

21/01/2026

I want to be open with the community about the recent decision by Unity Schools Partnership Trust to suspend entry into Felixstowe School Sixth Form from this September, and to share my intentions moving forward. As many people will know, I am always honest and transparent about my thoughts regarding our town and I hope that those of you that are interested will take the time to read this.

Last week, I was informed by senior leaders from the Trust and the School that the Trust Board had decided to pause Sixth Form admissions for the next academic year. This news came as a complete shock, there was no prior indication or consultation with the School’s Local Governing Body (which I chair), families, or the wider community. During the call, I expressed my deep disappointment and anger, highlighting the impact on families who had already chosen the Sixth Form for their children, and the wider effect on our town, which will now be left without any post-16 provision for nearly 30,000 residents. I was told the decision was final. The full Governing Body was later informed, and their reaction mirrored my own.

From a business perspective, I understand the financial pressures: the small Sixth Form cohort means funding is insufficient, and resources have to be diverted from the rest of the school, affecting over 1,100 students in Years 7–11. However, removing this option entirely is, in my view, a travesty for Felixstowe, something unprecedented in my lifetime.

I am particularly concerned about the lack of consultation. Governors were not made aware that this was even being considered, let alone asked for their views. As the supposed link to the local community, this exclusion is deeply disappointing and, I believe, a significant mistake. One senior member of the Local Governing Body has resigned as a result. The community’s support for Felixstowe School, which has been growing in recent years, has been badly damaged by both the decision and the absence of consultation.

Since learning of the decision, I have been proactive in seeking a way forward. My concerns are shared by fellow Town Councillors, and the Mayor has called an Extraordinary Town Council meeting which will be held tomorrow (Thursday) evening. I have a call scheduled with our MP tomorrow to discuss urgent next steps, and I have convened an Extraordinary Governors Meeting for early next week to determine our response. I will also be meeting again with the Trust to express my disappointment and share the community’s feedback.

Looking ahead, I am working on a plan for a new post-16 offering for Felixstowe, one that is skills-based and focused on local business and industry, such as shipping, logistics, port operations, renewable energy, technology, and automation. The aim is to create a provision that serves young people from Felixstowe and surrounding areas, benefitting our community and economy for years to come. There will be challenges, but I believe Felixstowe deserves a fit-for-purpose post-16 option. I will be forming a steering group and engaging with local and national stakeholders. This will not happen overnight, but I am committed to making it a reality with the support of like-minded individuals.

In summary, I share the disappointment and upset felt by many and especially sympathise with the families directly affected. I will do everything I can to help and to ensure Felixstowe’s future is enhanced by our response to this decision.

30/10/2025

Here is my latest article written for the November edition of the Flyer magazine -

This is the first article I’ve written since having the honour of being appointed Deputy Mayor of Felixstowe — and I’m incredibly proud to be the first Independent Councillor to hold this position.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of representing the Town Council on several occasions when our Mayor, Cllr Corrine Franklin, has been unavailable. It’s been a real pleasure to attend local events, meet residents, and support the many organisations that make Felixstowe such a vibrant and caring community. I’m very much looking forward to continuing this work in the months ahead.
One particularly moving experience was representing Felixstowe at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, where I laid a wreath during the Last Post ceremony. The Felixstowe School choir and Landguard Band had travelled to Belgium for a series of concerts and cultural visits, culminating in an invitation to perform at the Menin Gate — a deeply significant honour.
The Last Post ceremony takes place every evening at 8pm and has done so since 1928, except during the Second World War when it was temporarily relocated to the UK. The service commemorates Commonwealth service personnel who died in the First World War and have no known grave. The memorial bears the names of over 54,000 individuals — a powerful reminder of the scale of sacrifice.
The students performed with great professionalism and heart during the wreath-laying, and it was wonderful to hear so many positive comments from those in attendance. I was also invited to deliver the Exhortation at the start of the service — something I’ve done before at remembrance events in Felixstowe, but never in such a globally recognised setting. Speaking those words beneath the Menin Gate was profoundly moving and a moment I’ll always treasure.
I’d like to extend my sincere congratulations to the music department at Felixstowe School for organising this remarkable trip and for enabling the students to participate in such a historic and meaningful event. Opportunities like this are invaluable — they create lasting memories and instil a deep sense of respect and pride in our young people.
As we enter the season of Remembrance, I’d also like to thank the Felixstowe Branch of the Royal British Legion for their tireless work during the Poppy Appeal and for coordinating the town’s remembrance events. Their dedication ensures that the sacrifices of our servicemen and women are never forgotten.
As always, I’m here to discuss any local issues or concerns you may have. Please feel free to get in touch via email at [email protected] or by phone on 07838 215964.
Cllr Darren Aitchison BEM – Independent

21/09/2025

Felixstowe School Landguard Band were fantastic tonight at the Menin Gate Last Post ceremony. Well done to everyone that took part, you should all be so incredibly proud of yourselves. A huge thank you to Mrs Kent, the Head of Music, and all the other staff that have made this trip possible. The students will remember this forever, well done!!
I was honoured to be part of the ceremony, laying a wreath and reading the exhortation. I am so lucky and proud to be able to represent Felixstowe and Felixstowe School.

10/07/2025

There has been considerable discussion on social media and in person regarding the recent changes to the parking provisions on Undercliff Road East. As a Town Councillor, I would like to take this opportunity to explain my position and outline my actions and future plans. Please note that the views expressed here are my own and may not reflect those of Felixstowe Town Council.

In my previous Facebook post and article in The Flyer, I opposed the changes to the parking regulations on this road. However, I did request that if changes were to be made, additional disabled parking spaces should be added adjacent to the dropped curbs.

The Town Council requested that the East Suffolk Council parking team review the regulations on this road, which previously had no restrictions except for a few disabled bays. After reviewing the options, the Town Council voted to impose restrictions allowing only cars and motorcycles to park without charges. I did not vote for this option, but it was passed during a meeting in June 2024. Following this decision, East Suffolk Council worked with Suffolk Highways to plan the layout of the area. To the best of my knowledge, the Town Council was not involved in this process. I was informed of the layout about a week before the work commenced, at which point no changes could be made.

Having originally opposed any new traffic regulations, I am extremely upset about the regulations that have now been enforced and the manner in which they were implemented, and I am genuinely embarrassed about the state of this road. As previously stated, I would have liked to see very minimal changes to this road and for it to be available for all vehicles and for there to be no discrimination, but changes were requested following a democratic vote. I had hoped that the Town Council would be further consulted during the process on the planned changes before they were implemented. This would have allowed the locally elected representatives to provide valuable input and potentially avoid many of the issues we see today. In my opinion, the communication between Highways, East Suffolk, and the Town Council has been appalling.

My biggest concern is the two large bus stops that have been marked out. There is currently no public bus route along this road, although there was one many years ago. I have asked the Town Clerk to speak to East Suffolk and find out why the bus stops are there. My feeling is that these bus stops were reinstated by Highways without checking if they were still in use. I would also like to know how the calculation was done to decide on the number of motorbike spaces needed.

Despite these challenges, I remain committed to working collaboratively with all parties involved to find a solution that best serves our community. I believe that through open communication and cooperation, we can address these issues and improve the parking situation on Undercliff Road East for everyone.

05/06/2025

Proud to be part of this amazing team of volunteers.

25/05/2025

Pitstop open today 10-2.

22/05/2025

Last night I had the privilege of being invested as Deputy Mayor of Felixstowe. This is an incredible honour for me and for Cassandra Aitchison as Deputy Mayoress. We will be doing everything we can to support the new Mayor of Felixstowe, Corrine Franklin, and this amazing town as a whole. I am really looking forward to what the next year holds and representing the town I grew up in and am proud to call home.
The younger me would never have thought something like this would happen and I still get bouts of imposter syndrome, but I know I can do this and the support I get from family, friends, and the community is what keeps me pushing ahead in my work with and for Felixstowe.

06/11/2024

At this evenings Felixstowe Town Council meeting we were discussing the Councils statement on the NFGN plan. In the interest of being open and honest here is my statement that I presented during the debate.

As you will be aware I wasn’t present at the meeting where this draft statement was discussed, so I feel as the only Independent Councillor I would like to make a few observations and suggestions prior to this statement being ratified and released. However, I do have one very major concern that I feel this council should hear and discuss, I’ll come on to this at the end of my statement.

I’m going to go through each section of the draft as it is written, the common theme here will be stronger wording is needed throughout.

I feel we need stronger wording regarding the build quality, especially in regard to net-zero. We should be stating that in order for planning applications to be approved by the Town Council Planning Committee the dwellings must have renewable energy heating solutions, such as solar panels, ground or air sourced heat pumps and there should be no gas boilers. We should be aiming for a development to rival the award winning Goldsmith Street Passivhaus scheme in Norwich, I admit that was a much smaller scale with 93 homes but it is something to aspire to.

Upgrading the football pitches is essential but we should state that the upgraded football pitches must not include 3G pitches, Felixstowe will have its allocation of 3G given that there are plans to build one at the new leisure centre and also one at Felixstowe and Waltons ground. It is my understanding that there are no plans for 3G within the current design, but I feel it would be worth stating our position on this very clearly.

We must use stronger language around the protection of Eastward Ho!, I personally would like to see zero dwellings or schools built on Eastward Ho, however I would like to see the development of the play facilities for all age groups which could mean separate areas and may also include additional leisure activities such as a pump track, new skate park, outdoor gym equipment etc. The land described as Eastward Ho means different things to different people, I would encourage the addition of a map to our statement which clearly defines what this council regards as Eastward Ho and as such the boundary for housing development.

I have very serious concerns regarding the pedestrian and cycle access to the site, particularly the area directly north of Candlet Road. We are all aware that the High School and a number of junior schools are to the south of this very busy road, as far as I have seen in the plan there are very limited crossing points and this is going to put the children and young adults who must cross this road to get to and from school in danger. I see that a footbridge is alluded to in our statement which is good, but I would like to see stronger language used about this and additional ground level crossing points.

High School capacity for me is the biggest concern, as I think is common knowledge now Felixstowe School is at or extremely close to capacity. As Chair of Governors I do speak from a position of knowledge of the situation. The forecasts for the coming years based on the current population of the town will put the school over capacity and will inevitably mean that some parents will be forced to send their children to schools outside the town. This is an absolute travesty and should not be the case for any community let alone one that only has a single high school. I have personally been warning of this scenario for the past 4 years and now finally the right people are listening and things look as if they may improve by means hopefully of an additional building at Felixstowe School, which will increase the capacity to a suitable level for a town of this size. But, there has at this point been no statement by the Department of Education or SCC to this affect so the reality is the resolution to this issue is going to take a number of years, even when the DofE agree that expansion is needed, agreement will be needed from the Trust and SCC and then funding will need to be found, the design time, the planning applications, the build time etc. In my opinion we are looking at a minimum of 3 years from now. A key element of the Governments building policy is that the infrastructure must be in place to sustain the developments, in the case of Felixstowe the high school provision is not currently in place to sustain the current population let alone the development and therefore I personally feel that the NFGN plan should at a minimum be put on hold until such time as the high school places exist or at least are guaranteed to exist by the time house building starts. As a Town Council we should be pushing back against this development getting to the planning application stage on the grounds of insufficient high school places being available at this time.

09/07/2024

This is fantastic news for our town. I'm so proud to be associated with Felixstowe School, I've been a Governor since January 2020 and Vice-Chair for the last two years. In this role I've seen just how much the school has improved in all areas and the incredible amount of work that has gone into this. I'd like to congratulate the Senior Leadership Team, teaching staff, support staff, governors, and especially students and their families. There has been so much positive change and this is primarily down to the young adults embracing change and working so hard to improve their school.
All 4 of our children went to the school and I have absolutely no problem recommending it to others.
As the report shows, it's not all perfect and there are still things that need to be improved, I am convinced that by continuing to make incremental improvements the school will continue to be a place Felixstowe can be proud of.
To go from Special Measures to Good in 6 years is a remarkable achievement and everyone involved should be truly proud.

The school's Ofsted grading has been improved following a recent inspection.

10/06/2024

FREE meals for families this summer! What an amazing community we live in...