Sheffield City Council’S Response to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England’S Draft Recommendations on Warding Arrangements for Sheffield
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Sheffield City Council – response to Local Government Boundary Commission for England draft recommendations on warding arrangements for Sheffield 1. Introduction 1.1. This document contains Sheffield City Council’s response to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England’s draft recommendations on warding arrangements for Sheffield. The Council submission represents the view of the majority group, and points of difference with the opposition groups are noted where relevant in the text. Responses from the Liberal Democrat and Green groups are included in full in appendices at Appendix A and Appendix B. The submission also appends the minutes of a specially convened meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee, and the submissions of community representatives who gave evidence to which have already been sent to you (see Appendix C and D). 1.2. All political groups are largely supportive of the majority of the Commission’s proposals, which largely replicate the proposals put forward by the Council in our response to the consultation on warding arrangements. We do, however, have a number of comments and alternative proposals to address some of the areas where we do not believe that the Commission’s recommendations are satisfactory. 1.3. This response starts by reiterating the Council’s approach to developing our boundary proposals and then addresses the Council’s main point of concern first, followed by the remaining points of difference. 2. Future-proofing Sheffield 2.1. As stated in our submission to the Commission in July 2014, in developing our proposal the Council adhered to the Commission’s statutory criteria, and at the same time sought to propose a scheme of wards which takes into account the potential for significant growth in certain areas of the city and minimises the risk of an early review. Wherever possible, this has included keeping the variance from the ward average to plus or minus 5%. We also sought, where possible, to maintain current ward boundaries in view of the general agreement amongst councillors that the current wards worked well at a community level and because of the challenges of Sheffield’s topography. 2.2. In light of the above, our main concern the with Commission’s proposals is with the proposals to include all of Broomhall in City ward which, would leave City ward 2% smaller than the ward average. We are concerned that in view of the high levels of anticipated development in the city centre, that this runs the risk of a further early boundary review. 2.3. Developing a scheme of wards in an electoral review relies on developing a forecast of the electorate for six years ahead of the start of the review. In a fast-growing city this is challenging, and the Commission’s need for certainty means that we were restricted to taking into account planning permissions which had been granted at the date of the forecast. As new planning permissions are granted on an ongoing basis, the picture is constantly changing, and by January 2015 further planning permissions have been granted which would increase the electorate in the current Central ward by approximately 37% by 2026. These are clearly not all forecast to be completed by 2020, but they give an indication of the potential growth of the city centre in the medium term and indicate that the rate of growth is similar to the rate experienced since the last review and which caused the present review. 2.4. In addition to our concern about the size of City, it became apparent during our development of a response to the Commission’s proposal that there was an error in the Commission’s proposed electoral numbers for Park and Arbourthorne and City wards. In order to keep Broomhall together in City ward, the Commission proposed to include the polling district GF, the area bounded by the Inner Ring Road, London Road, Denby Street and Bramall Lane in Park and Arbourthorne ward rather than in City as proposed by the Council. In doing this, the Commission used the 2013 figures rather than the 2020 figures, resulting in an undercounting of 221 in Park and Arbourthorne. This was compounded by the draft proposals rounding down rather than up when assigning percentages, making it appear that the Commission’s proposed Park and Arbourthorne ward would be 7% over the city ward average, when in reality it would be 9% larger than average on 2020 figures. 2.5. Unfortunately, the area where the undercounting occurred is also the location of one of the largest proposed developments in the city, which was not included in the original forecast as planning permission was not submitted until September. This will see a development for accommodation for 700 students built by 2018 (planning permission was approved in January 2015). Whilst it is anticipated that many of the students would be from overseas, it is likely that many would be eligible to vote in local elections, and work which has been carried out with the two universities means that all students are invited to register to vote at the same time as registering at university, resulting in high levels of registration amongst students 1. Although this development is not included in the electoral forecast and is still awaiting planning approval, we would urge that given the size and progress of the application, the potential for 700 additional students in this area be borne in mind when making decisions in this area. It is clear that not only is it not desirable from a community perspective to include this development in Park and Arbourthorne, including this area in the ward would potentially take the ward significantly over the 10% threshold before 2020. 2.6. The Council’s proposed scheme of wards would retain the area of GF in City, as in our original proposal, at the same time keeping City as small as possible to allow for future 1 See paragraph 2.7 below. growth. We propose to do this by drawing the boundaries with Walkley to include electors from within the Inner Ring Road into Walkley. Individual electoral registration 2.7. This electoral review takes place as the Council is in the process of transitioning to Individual Electoral Registration. There has been considerable national media coverage recently about the numbers of electors, particularly students, who have been lost from the electoral roll as a result of this transition. Sheffield has an agreement with Sheffield University to invite all students to register to vote at the same time as registering for the university , and Sheffield Hallam University will be implementing the same process from the 2015/16 academic year. At this early stage in the transition when university cities elsewhere have seen significant reductions in the numbers of students (and other residents) registered, with as few as 10% of students registered, Sheffield has only seen a reduction of 3,000 electors across the city, with over 60% of Sheffield students who are eligible to register having done so. 2.8. The automated process for registering students means that available resources can be used to increase electoral registration amongst other groups, and we anticipate an increase, rather than a decrease in electoral registration across the city, particularly in wards where there are currently low levels of registration, including City ward amongst others. Therefore it is expected that Individual Electoral Registration will have only a minimal impact on overall numbers of electors, and differential impacts (e.g. reductions in the numbers of registered students) will be less than in other cities. We would therefore urge the Boundary Commission not to factor national changes resulting from IER into their conclusions for Sheffield. 3. Consultation 3.1. In addition to making the Commission’s proposals available in libraries and other council buildings around the city and distributing posters widely across the city, the Council held a meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee to hear views from the community on the draft proposals. The chair of the Scrutiny Committee invited the Commission to attend to hear the evidence of the community and to explain their proposals to community representatives, but this invitation was declined. The evidence put to the committee, and the minutes of the meeting are appended at Appendix C and D. A summary of the evidence heard by the Council, grouped by areas of concern, is given below. Highfield 3.2. The main area of concern raised by residents was that the area of Highfield which had been included in Park and Arbourthorne was not a good fit with the new ward and that the community had been separated from Sharrow. 3.3. The inclusion of part of Highfield, bounded by Queen’s Road, the Inner Ring Road and Bramall Lane, in Park and Arbourthorne was a proposal in the Council’s initial consultation response and was included by the Commission in its proposals. The Council has been aware that this proposal causes some concern for residents, and that it separates the community from the remainder of Sharrow. Representations from the community have been made directly to the Commission and also at the meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee. 3.4. We recognised the concerns in our initial proposal, and that the resulting Park and Arbourthorne has very distinct communities, and it is with regret that, despite spending many weeks seeking to find alternative solutions, we have been unable to find an alternative solution which would not involve splitting up a number of different communities across the city, developing a city ward that would be too large and likely to trigger a further review, or creating a number of boundaries which are not easily identifiable.