PARISH COUNCIL Clerk: Mrs A McLaven 6 Road Isham Northants NN14 1HR

Email: [email protected] Phone: 01536 722640

23 November 2016

Boundary Commission for 35 Great Smith Street LONDON SW1P 3BQ

Dear Sir,

PARLIAMENTARY BOUNDARY REVIEW, Isham, Harrowden and Ward, Wellingborough

In the current Parliamentary Boundary proposals it is suggested that the currently split Harrowdens and Sywell Ward are moved completely to Daventry, with an MP based either in Daventry or, potentially, Blaby in Leicestershire. Currently Isham, , the Harrowdens and Hardwick all report to MP Peter Bone in Wellingborough, while Sywell, Ecton and are all under MP Chris Heaton-Harris in Daventry. The whole Borough Ward is covered by two Wellingborough Borough Councillors who both work across all the villages and cover for each other, they meet regularly, usually weekly, and attend Parish Meetings. They have no connection at all with Daventry not even where the current Parliamentary boundary takes effect.

We would like to register our objection to the boundary proposals on the points noted below and suggest most strongly that the current split ward stays as it is, as it works very efficiently. Most importantly, when considering localism, it’s what the residents want and will get the best engagement in Parliamentary matters.

In no particular order!

1. Isham, Orlingbury, the Harrowdens and Hardwick are all adjacent to Wellingborough and derive their social, economic, educational and all other identities from Wellingborough 2. Their current MP, Peter Bone, has offices 3 miles from Isham, a 10 min bus journey; whereas Daventry is 40 miles away, has absolutely no connections with Isham or the other villages mentioned and is over an hour and a half’s bus journey - entailing a bus to then another out to Daventry. Bearing in mind Isham and the other villages in question have a higher than the average age demographic. Residents, many of whom don’t drive, this is a significant point; in the main, they would not visit Daventry whereas they already regularly visit Wellingborough for shopping, cultural and sporting matters. 3. In the worst case, there could be four MP’s covering the Borough of Wellingborough. 4. With the Wellingborough North and other developments already in progress, Wellingborough itself will be physically connected as close as and only 1 mile from Isham. Wellingborough Borough Council supplies services to the community of Isham, eg. Planning, Refuse Collection, Council Tax and Public Health. These services are local to us in line with maintaining localism and with any decisions that affect our local community. Keeping our present MP, who is very familiar with the immediate local area and our local issues, would also mean the decisions that affect the local community are made by those most familiar with them and allow for the local community to be connected to abutting other Parishes with which we are more connected. 5. Our local train service is Wellingborough 6. Our cultural centre and theatre is the Castle at Wellingborough 7. Wellingborough’s Golf club is in , we tend to gravitate to Wellingborough for other sporting facilities such as rugby etc. 8. Isham is within the Borough boundary of Wellingborough and derives all its services from there 9. These five villages at best provide 1,800 residents you are considering displacing to Daventry, not a figure significant enough to warrant the upheaval it will cause in our opinion. 10. Our MP Peter Bone also lives close by and regularly socialises with his wife within the villages, visiting the functions at village halls as well as coffee houses like the Bear and Beignet in Isham, etc. and is considered a close and approachable resident. We have nothing at all against MP Chris Heaton Harris, and feel he does a great job for Daventry, but are aware that he rarely visits Ecton, Sywell and Mears Ashby personally and is therefore just too remote from Isham 11. Peter Bone MP has been and continues to be very supportive of our campaigns to build a bypass around Isham, ( A509) this has gone on for many years now and is hopefully coming to fruition in the not too distant future, to change our MP over the next couple of years would cause enormous setbacks in this area where consistency of approach is vital 12. Housing – for buying and selling housing the natural gravitation is to Wellingborough also as far as rental goes that also would normally see landlords based in Wellingborough. The Council’s Housing operation ( Wellingborough Homes) is also there 13. Banking and other financial services all tend to be in Wellingborough

In short, Isham residents have absolutely no connection with Daventry, we are too remote and transport links by anything other than car journeys are not practical.

Within this Ward we are seeing better than ever engagement and interest in political matters and wish to see that encouraged, a move to Daventry will set us back many years!

We would respectfully request that the Harrowden and Sywell ward works well and should stay as they are, we will see significant deterioration in engagement should this recommendation go ahead.

Yours faithfully

A McLaven Clerk to Isham Parish Council