Ben Foley - Councillor for Greyfriars Ward

14/06/2026

I’ve joined this, this morning. Still time for you to come along too!

🌿 Join Us for Our Community Litter Pick! 🌿
Don't forget it will be our next community litter picking in our town centre this Sunday, 14 June, meeting at our Visitor Information Centre from 10am to 12noon.
All necessary equipment, including bags, litter pickers, rings, gloves, and high-visibility vests, will be provided to volunteers. Children under 18 are welcome, but must be accompanied by an adult to ensure safety.
We hope to see you here on Sunday.

07/06/2026

I was glad to go along to the Eid In Bedford fair yesterday at Addison Howard Park, Kempston. As ever it was well organised, and it was good to see families out enjoying themselves despite the weather.
I'm glad to see the weather is better this morning, so hopefully drier fun will be possible for those attending today.
1pm-8pm. Right by the stop for the No 1 bus, but if you go by car, £2 for parking (no change given, blue badge appears to be free).

23/05/2026

I’m at the EastWest Rail consultation on at Kings House on Amptill Road until 6pm. I will be arguing, yet again, against ALL demolitions of homes for the scheme. The “reasons” given aren’t good enough. I will also be arguing against tall buildings that dwarf the current homes on Ashburnham Road, and for better connections to the bus network and the networks for walking/wheeling and for cycling.

20/05/2026

This worries me, partly because of the distance between Greenhill Street (the bus station, icydk) and Midland Road.
I hope everyone is OK, and my best wishes and thanks go to the Fire and Rescue Service.

Update - 5pm

The incident has now concluded and crews have left the area.

Thank you for your cooperation.
_______________________________________________________________________

🚨 INCIDENT 🚨

Crews are in attendance in the Greenhill Street / Midland Road area of Bedford. Please avoid the area to allow for fire service access 🚒

Thank your for your cooperation

20/05/2026

The bigger surprise for me is that none of the mayor's cabinet had got as sick of the mess earlier.

“I felt that I could no longer stay in his cabinet any longer...”

15/05/2026

Congratulations to Esquires. I know what a reputation you've got among musicians. A couple of months ago I was chatting to one while visiting London, and when I said I was from Bedford, she said "oh, Esquires!", and was very complementary :-)

01/05/2026

So, this clarifies a chunk. My advice to stop your grey food waste bin going missing (if you have one) is to mark it with your house number (a lot of us living in flats that are converted houses will have one for the whole house). If you're in a town centre flat where it isn't possible to have a 'big' grey bin, there are the green bins around the town centre - see this post - https://www.facebook.com/BenForGreyfriars/posts/pfbid0zSfjb7BevG3QmkjyMfsJroNCd6WydzP9oEeiN2ZiccuwVQizgVxKKWF7Pgwva3ihl

24/04/2026

Happy St George's Day from the Green Party!

12/02/2026

Im at the East West Rail information session (at Cauldwell Community Centre, Althorpe Street, MK42 9HF). This session goes on until 8pm, and there’s another session on Saturday (Queens Park Community Centre, Marlborough Road MK40 4LF) 12-5pm.
Plans have moved on from what I’ve seen before. Still Ashburnham Road demolitions in prospect 😡. They haven’t yet had time to take on board the council’s concerns about traffic through Queens Park if the multi storey carpark is that side of the tracks.

31/12/2025

Please don't put your bin out tonight (New Year's Eve) - there's no collection tomorrow. Instead, put your orange bin out tomorrow (New Year's day) evening to collect on Friday. It's hard enough to get around our pavements without bins being out for an extra day. Thanks!

So, for Greyfriars, our normal bin collections would be on Christmas Day and January 1st. Very reasonably, the bin staff are having those days off, so our normal collection (black bins) will not happen on 25 December, but a day before - please make sure you put your bin out by 6am on Christmas Eve (or the night before, if like me you're not up that early). Our orange bin collection will take place a day later on Friday 2 Jan, not on Thu 1 Jan, so please don't put it out on new year's eve, but wait 24 hours.
As always, please bring your bins in as soon as you can after they have been collected: bins on the pavement get in the way of people pushing prams, using wheelchairs and mobility scooters. And please, don't leave rubbish out that isn't in a bin, except if it is recyclables put out the night before (or the morning of an orange bin collection), that are in a clear plastic bag or a cardboard box.