Draft recommendations on the new electoral arrangements for Council

Response from Parish Council

Tuesday 12th April 2016

Icklesham Parish Council considered the recommendations contained in the March 2016 New electoral arrangements for document and unanimously voted against the draft proposals.

Icklesham Parish Council is made up of four wards containing 13 councillors (Icklesham ward 4 councillors, ward 3 councillors, 4 councillors and 2 councillors) and currently served by 2 district councillors. The proposed changes will see Icklesham served by 6 district councillors and the ward arrangements changed drastically.

The proposal to increase the number of Parish Councillors for Icklesham ward to 6 will create an imbalance of councillors across the Parish. At the moment no one ward can hold sway. This proposal means that with a Chairman from Icklesham Ward and one absent member or a vacancy in the other three ward’s decisions would be made on the casting vote.There is no justification for increasing Icklesham’s representation by 50%. The alternative proposal in Table 1 provides a better balance although Winchelsea would have a slightly higher representation per councillor than the other wards. This would to some extent future proof things as Winchelsea could not be expected to see the same level of increase potentially available to the other wards as the majority of the land surrounding the town is owned by the National Trust and there is very little opportunity to provide additional housing. One of the two sites with development potential within the existing citadel area is owned by the Trust. In any case it halves the variance between highest and lowest by 52% in comparison to the existing situation.

Page 1 of the draft recommendations document states that East has a high level of electoral inequality as do the districts of and Wealden. It states that Rother does not have the level of electoral inequality that would normally trigger a review but it is being reviewed none the less. Icklesham Parish Council feels that the review of the Rother District is therefore unnecessary and it should be left as it is.

Three main considerations in conducting an electoral review, as set out in legislation (schedule 2 to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009) are to:

• Improve electoral equality by equalising the number of electors each councillor represents

• Reflect community identity

• Provide for effective and convenient local government

The proposals for Icklesham Parish Council and Rother District Council do not achieve these considerations as follows:

• There is not currently sufficient electoral inequality to trigger a review and the proposals do not achieve electoral equality (please see table 1 below for the figures.) • The proposals do not reflect community identity. The proposal will break up Icklesham and see all of its wards combined with others. It is proposed to put Winchelsea with Rye; Rye is a completely separate town council and the majority of electors are in Rye. The report suggests that it will have 3,791 electors; Winchelsea has 402 so will have little influence. We disagree with the comments on page 9 of the document that the proposals provide for good adherence to the statutory criteria and feel that they do not reflect the views of residents. Two of our wards, Winchelsea Beach and Rye Harbour, will be removed and combined with Camber, , Iden, , and resulting in a disparate ward. Again this removes two of the wards of Icklesham Parish and places them in completely different communities with different identities; Winchelsea Beach is a seaside settlement and, other than Camber, shares little in terms of identity with the other villages. Rye Harbour has a large industrial presence as well as the harbour and has little community identity with the others. Again we disagree with the comments on page 8 that this provides for good adherence to the statutory criteria. Icklesham has been placed with , Fairlight and . Again there is no common identity with these communities and Fairlight has expressed an interest in a single warding arrangement. We do not agree with the comments that this provides for good adherence to the statutory criteria.

• The proposals do not provide for effective and convenient local government. It is not effective or convenient for Icklesham Parish Council to be split and served by 6 district councillors. This would be completely unworkable at Parish and District level.

In summary Icklesham Parish Council strongly disagrees with the proposals for the reasons outlined and proposes that the electoral arrangements are kept as they are now. The Council was surprised to find out that the Parish might be split this way without direct consultation. The levels of electoral inequality do not justify a review which is undertaken at a considerable cost to the tax payer, resulting in problems with community identity and ineffective and inconvenient local government arrangements.

Table 1.

Ward Parish Parish Proposed Proposed Alternative Alternative cllrs. per cllrs. per cllrs. per cllrs. Per ward now elector ward elector now Icklesham 4/822 1/205 6/822 1/137 5/822 1/164 Rye Harbour 2/370 1/185 2/370 1/185 Winchelsea 3/402 1/134 4/402 1/100 2/402 1/201 Winchelsea Beach 4/688 1/172 4/688 1/172 Rye Harbour & 3/1030 1/343 Winchelsea Beach

Anna Evett

Clerk and RFO

Icklesham Parish Council