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Watford Liberal Democrats – Submission to Local Government Boundary Commission for England, Review of Watford Borough Council ward boundaries, July 2015 Introduction We endorse the proposals set in Watford Borough Council’s formal submission to the review. The document agreed and put forward by the council contains detailed proposals in terms of electorate size per ward and explanations for those proposals. We will not therefore repeat those details here, but would like to add further comments in the light of the discussion within the council regarding the boundary review, highlighting particular issues which have been the subject of debate and disagreement. Central/Tudor boundary The proposals agreed by the council envisages moving polling district HA from Central to Tudor ward. As stated in the council’s submission, we believe this is a straightforward way of addressing the significant shortfall in the Tudor ward electorate. It enables a clear boundary in the form of the West Coast mainline. This polling district already shares a polling station with part of Tudor ward and indeed until 1999 they were part of the same polling district. An alternative proposal put forward involves moving the ward boundaries to enable future growth within Callowland and Central wards, essentially development close to Watford Junction, to be included in Tudor ward. We believe there are problems with this. First, the timescale of the new development is unknown and so for the immediate future no additional electors will be added to Tudor ward. This would not matter if the latter was merely on the margins of the 10% permitted variance, as the new developments would then in time bring it closer to the average. The problem, however, is that Tudor is currently 20% below the average and would remain so for the 2016 elections. While we are not averse to wards being close to the 10% variance if this is made desirable by community identity, we believe this variance would leave unresolved, at least in the short term, one of the significant shortcomings of the current ward boundaries. In addition the council’s planning policies envisage the new development looking more towards the St Albans Road District Centre (in Callowland ward) rather than towards the residential community in Tudor ward, as recognised in the approved Watford Borough Council Core Strategy’s requirements for the Watford Junction Development: the retail element at the St Albans Road node must support and diversify the existing district centre whilst providing retail facilities to support the residents living in the new neighbourhood. This will be achieved through the physical and functional integration with the existing district centre. (Core Strategy p.27) Therefore we believe that the solution of moving Polling District HA from Central to Tudor is preferable to the alternative of moving the Callowland/Tudor boundary to incorporate the planned new development. Oxhey/Vicarage/Central boundaries This again creates a problem regarding allocating uncertain future development to specific wards, particularly when the precise final form of the development is not known and all three wards risk 1 exceeding the 10% variance. The situation regarding this boundary is, however, rather different from that of Tudor/Central. Unlike Tudor. Oxhey is currently within the 10% variance, so the need to correct this less immediate. It makes is less of a problem to include as yet unbuilt areas within the Oxhey boundary – if the Health Campus development is unbuilt by 2020, Oxhey is likely to remain within the 10% margin. An alternative proposal has envisaged moving part of polling district HE (the area known as Watford Fields) into Oxhey, while the council’s submission proposes including part of the planned health campus. In our view Watford Fields and Oxhey area clearly distinct communities. The latter’s boundary has for a long time been the River Colne and this gives Oxhey a sense of being a very distinct community within Watford, with its own identity. By contrast, Watford Fields relates more to the town centre. It is divided from Oxhey by the River Colne, by Oxhey Park and by a railway line embankment which clearly separates the two areas. There are therefore only limited community links between Oxhey and Watford Fields. Given Oxhey’s distinct community identity, in an ideal world it would be preferable not to adjust the boundary of the River Colne. Such a change is, however, made necessary by the projected shortfall in its electorate. In our view adding the ‘riverside’ part of the health campus is a preferable solution to merging Oxhey and Watford Fields. This part of the health campus will be visible from the Riverside Road area of Oxhey and have at least as strong a relationship to the Colne Valley as it does to West Watford and Vicarage ward. The main vehicular access, in the form of the hospital link road currently under construction will be closer to Oxhey than is the Lammas Road entrance to Watford Fields. While the river will still represent a physical barrier, unlike Watford Fields this part of the health campus will be on the ‘Oxhey’ side of the new road and facing towards Oxhey. Being a newly‐ created community it will not have a previous identification with a particular area, whether Oxhey, West Watford or Central Watford so, from a community perspective, including this part of the health campus in Oxhey is unproblematic. Nascot boundary The area known as Nascot would generally be understood to encompass an area bordered by St Albans Road, Hempstead Road, the West Coast mainline railway and the northern borough boundary. Unfortunately, a ward with these boundaries would have too many electors. Although a small area of Hempstead Road/Stratford Road/The Avenue is in Park ward, Nascot remains just over the 10% variance, although according to projects it will be within 8% by 2020. In addition as there are few obvious development sites within Nascot, it is likely that over time it will move closer to the borough average. It has been proposed that a significant area of the northern part of the ward should move into Leggatts and that The Avenue should be moved entirely into Nascot. We believe that this would be more unsatisfactory than the status quo in terms of community identity, meaning that more electors who would see themselves as belonging to Nascot will end up in a different ward. While there is a case for the Nascot boundary to revert to the centre of Hempstead Road, restoring The Avenue to Nascot, this could only be achieved by creating a similar problem at the other end of the ward. We consider therefore that the status quo is the most acceptable among unavoidably imperfect options. 2 Stanborough/Woodside/Meriden We recognise that there is a difficulty with the boundaries for these wards in balancing acceptable electorate size with community identity and geographical boundaries. Although currently well within the 10% variance, Stanborough and Woodside are projected to be at the lower end of this by 2020. We would, however argue that remedying this by creating wards that straddle the A41 is not a good solution to this problem. It is a very clear geographical boundary, with few crossing points, in some places high banks and service roads adding to the sense of distance between wards to the North and South of the road. There are similar issues with the boundaries between Meriden, Stanborough and Woodside wards themselves. In particular, the A405 between Woodside and Meriden/Stanborough is a very clear boundary, which for most of its length can only be crossed via subways. On paper it might seem that the Coates Way/Kytes Drive area is a distinct community within Meriden ward and could be moved to Woodside. This, however, underestimates how strong a barrier the A405 is from Woodside and also the extent to which this area shares amenities with Meriden ward (e.g. Garston Park and Garston Park Parade shops). Similar considerations apply to the St Albans Road (A412) boundary between Stanborough and Meriden. Given its design and scale it is a less strong geographical boundary than the A405 or A41, but it remains a dividing line between communities. Therefore, amending these boundaries would leave small areas stranded in wards to which the residents do not feel they belong. Since all three wards are currently within the 10% variance and projected to remain so (albeit only just in the case of Stanborough and Woodside) by 2020, we believe that retaining the existing boundaries is the most satisfactory solution. Andy Wylie Chair – Watford Liberal Democrats Iain Sharpe Leader, Liberal Democrat Group, Watford Borough Council 3 .

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