Newcastle Conservative Federation

Newcastle City Council Electoral Review – Draft Boundaries Submission

August 2016

This is a response from the Newcastle Conservative Federation to the Local Government Boundary Commission’s draft proposals for electoral ward boundaries within . It draws on the views expressed to us by our members and local residents. We have chosen not to submit a full alternative response to the Commission’s proposals but would like to offer some thoughts on some specific ward proposals where we have received feedback from our members or residents.

Newcastle Conservatives responded to the original consultation on warding arrangements by expressing its view that the number of councillors should reduce from the current level of seventy-eight. Our original proposal was to reduce the number of councillors to fifty-two representing fifty-two single member wards. However we acknowledged that were the Council and the Commission to continue to divide the number of councillors by three then the reduction should be to fifty-four councillors with three members each representing one of eighteen wards. We set out our reasons for this in detail which we have attached as an appendix to this submission. The strong arguments in favour of a reduction appeared initially to have been accepted by the Commission, however the Commission then changed its mind after protests from the City Council. We remain disappointed that the Commission chose to cave in to pressure from Labour councillors and declined to take this opportunity to reduce the cost of politics in Newcastle and provide the City with an adequate level of representation. We continue to believe the case for reduction is strong and we will continue to pursue this point in our political campaigns.

We are broadly supportive of the proposals that the Commission have proposed for Newcastle and appreciate that drawing electoral boundaries is never an easy task and it is always difficult to satisfy all interested parties. We would like to thank the Commission and the staff at the City Council – whose proposals have largely been adopted unchanged by the Commission – for their hard work. We wish to offer to principal observations about the proposals as a whole: the robustness of the population projections used and the large disparities in elector numbers that will continue to exist between wards.

We understand that the Commission uses population projections to calculate ward boundaries looking ahead to 2021. This is welcome as, unlike parliamentary boundaries, local government ward boundaries tend to remain static for longer periods. However we do not believe that the projections used by the Commission are entirely robust. Some of the proposed housing expansion that has been used in these calculations remains earmarked for development but development is not yet guaranteed to go ahead. Sadly, there is a history in Newcastle of proposed housing developments never materialising such as those proposed in the and Scotswood areas several years ago. We would therefore urge the Commission to continue to review the development of populations in Newcastle in order to ensure that warding arrangements reflect actual houses that are built rather than hypothetical houses that never materialise.

We are also concerned about the large disparities that will continue to exist between wards even if the 2021 figures prove to be accurate. Although we accept that the Commission’s guidance requires wards to be within 10% each of the average – Newcastle will have six wards which are either +/- 8 or 9% from the average. This means there will be a variance of 18% between the largest and smallest wards in Newcastle after this review. We understand that this is acceptable under the Commission’s working practices but we believe that this difference remains too large. We believe that the Commission should strive for further equality between wards so the number of electors in each ward is more equal.

In addition to feedback received about the proposals in their entirety we would like to offer some observations on a number of specific ward proposals that the Commission has produced. We do not wish to comment on every ward that has been proposed or offer a full alternative scheme for the City. Instead we wish to make four specific representations to the Commission both supporting and opposing the wards they have proposed.

Ward Number 6 – Castle We support the idea of keeping the three northern villages in a single ward. We believe that these villages each have distinct identities individually but also a shared identity as being on the periphery of the city. We also welcome the fact that this ward keeps the Great Park development in a single ward. Although it is disappointing that the area will be divided between this ward and Cheviot ward, we understand that inclusion of Kingston Park in a single ward would result in unacceptable levels of electoral inequality. We support this proposed ward.

Ward Number 7 – Chapel We welcome the split of the current ward which allows the uniting of the Chapel Park and Chapel House areas into a single ward. Local residents have suggested this idea for a number of years and it seems sensible to place Westerhope Village in a ward with Denton whilst the similar communities of Chapel Park and Chapel House are kept together. We support this proposed ward.

Ward Numbers 9 & 18 – Dene and Manor Park The wards proposed for the South , Benton and areas have generated the most concerns and responses from residents and Conservative representatives in Newcastle. The Commission has proposed to unite the communities in High West and South Gosforth with those in High Heaton despite these being entirely distinct from each other. The separation of South Gosforth and High West Jesmond from the rest of Gosforth does not appear to make any logical sense when these communities are linked in many ways. Similarly the artificial boundaries that have been used to divide the communities east of Jesmond Dene in Benton and High Heaton do not appear to have taken into account community links in these areas.

We would suggest an alternative arrangement where the communities east of Jesmond Dene are kept together. We would note that both Dene and Manor Park wards are below the electoral quota whereas Heaton and wards – both south of this area but east of Jesmond Dene are above the quota. We therefore believe that it would be possible to construct a wards that stretched further southwards without breaching the natural boundary of Jesmond Dene. We appreciate that the Commission has sought to use the Coast Road as a boundary to create wards however this is not a significant boundary that defines communities on either side of it. Residents living in the Holystone estate and Cochrane Park, for example, regularly use facilities south of the Coast Road such as the local primary school and facilities on and surrounding Chillingham Road.

We would also note that if the current proposal is to go ahead that we believe that a reference to ‘South Gosforth’ should be included in the name of the ward.

We therefore oppose this ward and would support an alternative proposal that kept the communities on each side of Jesmond Dene in separate wards.

Ward Number 19 – Monument We understand the rationale behind the Commission’s decision to create a single ward which includes all of Newcastle’s central business district and the immediate residential areas which border this. has been fragmented between four different wards since the last boundary review and this has often made it difficult for City-centre issues to be dealt with uniformly. We are however concerned that the new Monument ward is a very artificial construction and that it is not likely to lead to any community identity being fostered around this electoral area. We neither support nor oppose this ward but would like the Commission to consider how it can best ensure that wards lead to the generation of a better sense of community when they reconsider their draft arrangements.

We wish to reiterate that we are broadly supportive of the Commission’s overall proposals for Newcastle. We do feel there are a few areas where these could be re-examined and we believe we have offered some reasonable observations in this regard and we hope the Commission will consider these in the next stage of their review.

Newcastle Conservative Federation

For more information on this submission please contact: Mr James Bartle (Chairman)

ATTACHMENT 1

Newcastle Conservative Federation

Newcastle City Council Electoral Review – Council Size Submission

September 2015

This is the submission of the Conservative Party in Newcastle upon Tyne to the City Council’s consultation on the size of the City Council ahead of its own submission to the Boundary Commission. This document sets out our preferred number of councillors for a future City Council and the reasons why we believe this should be the preferred size.

Although the City Council’s Constitutional Committee has already agreed that the Council’s submission to the Boundary Commission should be based on wards with three members we wish to suggest an alternative to this proposal. We propose that instead of retaining the current model of wards with three members, the City Council should instead be composed of a larger number of wards each represented by a single councillor. We believe that the total number of councillors should be reduced to fifty- two each representing one of fifty-two single member wards. This represents a reduction of a third of the current size of the City Council. We set out our general arguments in favour of a reduction in the number of councillors below, but we believe that the Council should adopt our proposal for single member wards for two key reasons.

Better representation of local communities and neighbourhoods Single member wards will allow the Boundary Commission to draw up ward boundaries that better represent the communities and neighbourhoods with which people identify. There are some wards which, because of the large size required, are an amalgam of several different communities which do not necessarily have much in common except that they are geographically contiguous. Smaller wards would allow better representation of the City’s communities and where local residents had a greater sense of affinity with their local electoral district, it may encourage greater participation in local decision making and the electoral process.

A more direct and accountable relationship between councillors and electors Single member wards allow for a greater degree of accountability between the elected member and their electors. Residents would find it easier to identify who their sole local representative was and elected members could then be accountable to the electorate solely for their own record as a councillor, rather than the efforts of the collective team of councillors.

A move to single member wards would require the City Council to alter the current electoral cycle of elections by thirds and move to a system of all-out elections every four years. The current process of almost annual elections distracts the Council’s ruling party from adopting a long-term vision for their administration as one eye is always on a City Council election which is usually no more than twelve months away. A four year electoral cycle would give a successful administration the chance to fully implement their vision for the City and then have it adjudicated on by the electorate every four years. This would also offer further monetary savings for the Council in addition to those set out later in this submission. We acknowledge that a move to all-out elections would require a resolution from the City Council under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 which does not necessarily form part of this review process. We would, nevertheless encourage the City Council to adopt such a resolution in order to facilitate the adoption of this system. Should the City Council continue to propose that the total number of councillors should be based on three member wards, we would still propose that the size of the City Council is changed. We believe in principle that the size of the City Council should be reduced below the current level of seventy-eight. Taking in to account the City Council’s preferred model of three member wards we would propose, as an alternative, that the size of the City Council should be reduced to fifty-four councillors representing eighteen wards each with three members. We re-affirm our belief that our original proposal of fifty-two single member wards represents a better system of electoral arrangements for Newcastle. Nevertheless we arrive at this alternative proposal as we believe it allows the Council to have enough members to carry out all of the formal duties of the Council, it still allows councillors to fulfil their wider responsibilities to their communities as demonstrated by the examples of other core cities and it also represents greater value for money for the Council. Our detailed reasons for adopting this alternative proposal and also our general reasons for proposing a system with a lower number of councillors than present are:

The core workload of councillors is decreasing The workload which councillors are being expected to carry out is not increasing – indeed the opportunities for councillors to participate in the decision-making and scrutiny functions of the council are decreasing. At the beginning of the 2010/11 municipal year the City Council had a total of forty-two committees. By the start of the 2015/16 municipal year this had more than halved to eighteen committees. The biggest fall in the number of committees occurred amongst scrutiny committees which have reduced from nine in number to two. There was a similarly sharp decline in the number of joint committees, authorities and other outside bodies to which members were appointed on behalf of the Council. At the start of 2010/11 there were one hundred and thirty bodies to which members were appointed. This fell to seventy-eight such bodies by 2015/16. This all points to a clear reduction in the core, formal workload of councillors which is exacerbated further by the decrease in the number of full council and ward committee meetings. We believe that the reduced workload could easily be carried out by fewer members. This statement of course ignores the work that councillors carry out directly on behalf of their constituents which some may well argue has increased in recent years as difficult decisions of the prioritising of council services have placed a heavier burden on elected members to address residents’ concerns. However we believe that there is clear evidence that the formal council work which councillors are being asked to undertake is decreasing and could therefore be carried out by fewer members.

Bringing Newcastle in line with other Core City local authorities A council with fifty-two or fifty-four councillors brings Newcastle slightly closer to other Core Cities in terms of the ratio of population to the number of councillors. Newcastle currently has 3,677 residents per councillor – this is the lowest ratio of the Core Cities. It contrasts to Cardiff with 4,689 residents per councillor, Manchester with 5,359 residents per councillor, Sheffield with 6,668 residents per councillor and Birmingham with 9,103 residents per councillor1. Although the Commission’s guidance does state that it does not compare authorities directly – we believe that such a difference between Newcastle and other comparable authorities does need to be acknowledged. We also believe that the ability of other local authorities to function effectively with

1 Calculations based on ONS mid-term population estimates 2013. higher councillor to resident ratios supports the case that the Council could effectively operate with fifty-two or fifty-four councillors.

Reducing the cost of politics in Newcastle There should not be a price placed on effective and good governance within Newcastle. However one cannot ignore that the political administration of the city comes with a price tag attached. There is already public concern about the cost of politics generally and public concern also extends to cost of representatives at a local level. The Council has acknowledged this and has frozen allowances in recent years, something which we welcome. The need to show restraint in allowances is even more acute at a time when the overall budget of the Council is being reduced. The administration has chosen to make some savings in the cost of politics in Newcastle, for example by reducing the number of council meetings, reducing the support required to scrutiny committees and making savings in the Office of the Lord Mayor. We believe that greater savings could be made by reducing the number of councillors overall and therefore allowing the Council to protect frontline services. A reduction in the size of the Council to fifty-two or fifty-four councillors would save a minimum of £228,150 in basic allowances alone. Over the course of a councillor’s term this would represent a significant saving. We believe that a reduction to fifty-two or fifty-four councillors would therefore represent better value for money for taxpayers in Newcastle.

We believe that the two proposals which we have offered the City Council to include in their submission to the Boundary Commission represent a positive and progressive alternatives to the current electoral arrangements in Newcastle which we believe require significant change in order to serve the City properly in years to come. We hope that the City Council will acknowledge that there is strong public appetite for the Council to offer better value for money for tax-payers in Newcastle and we believe that our proposals offer them the opportunity to achieve this whilst maintaining a system of open, accountable and effective governance for the City.