Let's be clear: Webster walks into Vanguard firestorm
"Let's be clear."
That was how Brightlingsea town councillor Mark Webster opened his Facebook post about Operation Vanguard — and 152 people had plenty to say in return.
Webster took to The Official Spotted: Brightlingsea group on 26 September to defend the £150,000 Essex County Council scheme, which has deployed six private security operatives across Colchester, Braintree and Chelmsford.
His message was simple. "Essex Police were engaged before Operation Vanguard was announced," he wrote. "This is not 'taking the law into our own hands'. The security officers have no police powers and policing remains the responsibility of Essex Police."
"Their role is simple: visibility, reassurance, safeguarding and reporting concerns."
What followed was a week-long argument that laid bare every fracture line the scheme has opened up — over money, policing, immigration, and who gets to speak for Brightlingsea.
"Follow the money"
Mat Court led the charge with a question that earned 50 reactions: "What evidence justified spending up to £150,000 of public money on six private security operatives in the first place?"
He pointed out that Essex Police's own Chief Constable, Rachel Nolan, had told the BBC that crimes and incidents linked to the Wethersfield asylum site were "very low."
Court wanted to see exactly how the money broke down — how much went to the six operatives, how much to management and supplier margin. "Personally, I'd rather ECC spent my taxes on things like fixing roads and pavements," he added, taking a swipe at the council's sponsored pothole adverts.
Chester Copperpot was blunter: "Follow the money. Who owns the security firm?"
The answer is My Local Bobby, a private security company providing SIA-licensed operatives with no police powers. The trial runs for three months, with two guards per town, patrolling seven days a week from 10am to 6pm.
The numbers that matter
Mitch Hayworth did the maths that everyone wanted to see. A police constable's basic salary is £32,254. Vanguard is costing £150,000 for three months. Divide that by a quarter of a PC's annual salary and you get 5.37 — the number of actual police officers the money could have funded over the same period.
"You are better off with police," Hayworth concluded. "And Specials are also a cheap supplement."
But Reform councillor Aimee Keteca — who originally announced the scheme on 31 August — pushed back in the thread, arguing that "the funding for Operation Vanguard has not been taken from the Essex Highways budget" and that "community safety matters too."
"Women, children and other residents have told us they can feel intimidated and unsafe in our town and city centres," she wrote.
"A waste of my hard earned money"
The thread quickly spiralled beyond the numbers.
Rebecca Boyd called it "an absolute waste of my hard earned money and something I did not ask for or want." Joshua Godfrey noted the money had been taken from the Community Innovation and Improvement Fund — "essentially a built-up emergency fund for youth and other developments" — and that there had been no public consultation.
Liam Fearis went further, describing asylum seekers as "rats that are invading our country" — a comment that drew swift rebukes. Craig Moyes asked pointedly: "'Rats' — is that what you are calling them?" Lia Smith added: "Wow, way to clearly out yourself."
A split that runs through the town
Sian Savage saw a wider pattern. "Reform," she wrote. "I could make a case about creating a narrative so that you can be seen to be solving a problem. This just reminds me of the dystopian scenes in America with the ICE agents."
It was an accusation of manufactured crisis — the idea that a political narrative was being built on fear rather than evidence.
Webster himself had linked to a BBC report in which Prime Minister Andy Burnham called the scheme "a highly unusual thing to do" and stressed that "it is for the police to decide these issues, rather than for people to bypass the police."
Yet Alan Long wanted the raw data. "Produce the national crime data, with racial breakdown, which Labour have gone to court to be able to withhold," he demanded. "Then these preventative measures can be measured correctly, for effectiveness."
Matt Keeling warned the same data could be "used divisively for the narrative anyone wants to push."
Where does Brightlingsea stand?
For Brightlingsea, the question is whether this is really the town's fight. Operation Vanguard operates in Colchester, Braintree and Chelmsford — not on its own streets. But the Wethersfield asylum accommodation, which houses about 800 men with plans to expand to 1,700, sits just a few miles away. Its residents are bussed daily into those three towns.
Brightlingsea's county councillor Keteca has made the scheme her flagship issue. Webster's post suggests her Reform colleague on the town council is rowing in behind her.
The 152 comments — and the 13 reactions on the post itself — suggest a town that is watching closely, and a community that has not yet found its voice on one of the most charged questions in British public life.
Written for the Brightlingsea wiki. Story text generated with deepseek-v4-pro (provider: OpenRouter), 4 October 2026. Background facts researched and verified separately; opinions are attributed to the people who voiced them.