Carlisle City Council Conservative Group. Submission on warding arrangements. RESPONSE TO THE LGBCE CONSULTATION. MAY 2018 Review of Carlisle City Council. This proposal outlines the Carlisle City Council Conservative Group response to the review of warding arrangements. Agreed by the Group, it proposes a 39 member Council, consisting of 13 three member wards. 1 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. CONTENTS Page Number Introduction 4 Calculating our electoral variance 5 Changes to Carlisle since the 1997 review 6 Overview of our review submission 10 Brief explanation of the OC Polling District 13 Rural Ward proposals:- Ward 1 – Brampton and Fellside 15 Ward 2 – Wetheral and Corby Hill 20 Ward 3 – Longtown, Lyne and Irthington 27 Ward 4 – Dalston and Burgh 32 Urban Ward proposals:- Ward 1 – Castle 39 Ward 2 – Currock and Upperby 45 Ward 3 – Stanwix Urban and Houghton 52 Ward 4 – Belah and Kingmoor 58 Ward 5 – Harraby South and Parklands 64 Ward 6 – Botcherby and Durranhill 70 Ward 7 – Sandsfield 76 Ward 8 – Newtown and Morton Central 85 Ward 9 – Denton Holme and Morton South 91 Response to the City Council Proposal 100 Concluding Statement 104 2 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. LIST OF APPENDICES. 1. 2016 Warding Averages 2. Copy of ‘Election by thirds’ Council Debate (page 6&7) 3. Local Plans Map (x2) (by hard copy only) 4. Maps of Bus Routes in Carlisle 5. Map of CNDR and News Report 6. News Report on Eden Bridge Closure 7. News Report on Denton Holme Flood Risk 8. Windfall Housing breakdown in the Rural Area 9. Email from the LGBCE 10. Local Plan U7 Site Map 11. Crindledyke Cycle Link Article 12. Newman School Relocation Article 13. Local Plan U4 Site Map 14. Database of All Wards (by email only) 15. Breakdown of All Polling Districts We Propose to Split 16. Map of all Urban Wards (hard copy only) 17. Map of all Rural Wards (hard copy only) 3 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. Introduction. The Carlisle City Council Conservative Group welcomes the decision by the LGBCE to reduce the number of Councillors by 25% to 39. We appreciate that this will require all existing wards to be redrawn, and recognise that this will represent an opportunity to examine whether the existing boundaries are an appropriate reflection of how Carlisle District has developed since 1999. In addition it will examine whether the current warding levels, that are a mixture of single, two and three member wards, are suitable for the revised Council. During the current LGBCE review process, it has become clear to us that since the previous review in 1997, warding levels have developed out of kilter. This has created wards that varied by over 20% (see appendix 1). In addition the establishment of new developments such as Parklands and Windsor Way have ended up crossing the meeting points of several wards, and more importantly crossing the boundary between the unparished areas of urban Carlisle and the rural parishes around it, which is ineffective and confusing to the communities. Likewise current developments along the road network on the edge of the City have taken the urban City into the rural area, these include:- Brackenleigh (in current Dalston ward) Crindledyke (in current Stanwix Rural ward) Clover Fields (in current Dalston Ward) Greymooorhill (in current Belah ward) Windsor Way (in Stanwix Urban & Stanwix Rural) Our report seeks to propose new boundaries with evidence to underpin them. In addition our proposal seeks to meet the following three criteria:- 1. That the new pattern of wards results in each Councillor representing broadly the same number of electors as their co-Councillors. 4 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. 2. Ward patterns that reflect the communities in their interests and identities and which has identifiable boundaries. 3. Effective and convenient wards that reflect the electoral cycle of the Council. On this last point, Carlisle is a Council which elects in thirds, and who reaffirmed this through a vote by Councillors in September 2017 (see appendix 2). Therefore we have made our proposal under the guidance provided by the LGBCE that: “Will look to create a pattern of three member wards across [the] Council area. If not we can propose a mixed pattern of wards” (source: LGBCE guidance ‘How to propose a pattern of wards). The warding pattern produced needs to reflect the 2023 electorate ratio (+/- 10%) as determined by the LGBCE. For Carlisle this is 2,297 electors per Councillor. For example a ward can be undersized, but if there is upcoming residential development this can move to a lower negative (or positive) variance over the next five years. Likewise a ward with a current positive variance, but which has little residential development planned could over the next five year period decline in electoral variance. We have therefore taken into account that residential developments will occur in concentrated areas within the district rather than as an even spread (see appendix three, a copy of the Local Plan maps). Calculating our Electoral Variance. Using the information provided by the LGBCE in 2017 the electorate of Carlisle City Council was 80,466. In 2023 the electorate is proposed to increase to 89,621. The configuration of a 39 member Council is therefore:- 2017 2023 10% fewer electors 1,856 2,067 Perfect electoral equality 2,063 2,297 5 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. 10% more electors 2,269 2,526 Therefore on the LGBCE guidance of three member wards, such a ward in 2023 would be as close to 6,891 electors as feasible, but could vary from 6,201 electors to 7,580 electors. In our proposal the wards vary by between -5.7% (Wetheral and Corby Hill) and +4.44 (Sandsfield). Changes to Carlisle since the 1997 LGBCE review. Carlisle and the District has changed in several areas since the last review. We feel that the following issues ought to have an influence on the warding patterns across Council area: Housing Several important changes to both the Council’s planning policy and the National Planning Framework have impacted on the communities that make up the Council area. These include:- 1. Raffles Regeneration – Prior to 1999. The west of the City contained a large estate called Raffles. It was cross cut by three current Council wards (Castle, Belle Vue and Yewdale). By the late 1990’s the area had become problematic due to anti-social behaviour, an ageing housing stock and poor reputation. This meant that properties became difficult to let. The decision was taken in the early 2000’s to regenerate the area. There was a large scale relocation of tenants, and several hundred properties were levelled creating potential sites for new build, whilst a concerted effort was made to tackle the anti-social behaviour. This is explained in more detail in the Newtown and Morton Central ward proposal. 6 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. 2. Local Plan – Planning policy locally is now set by a Local Plan which will run from 2015-2030. Sites have been brought forward in most wards for planned development to meet housing targets. We have included a set of Local Plan maps in the appendices so you can see the areas being developed. By 2023 we will be at the midpoint of the Local Plan. The proposed 10,000 dwelling St Cuthbert’s Garden Village will however not have come on supply by then, so we have discounted it from our warding proposals. Much of the housing in the Local Plan will be at sites that border the City limits, such as in land by the CNDR, or in the polling districts that are near to the motorway. This is reflected in our proposal as we feel we need to ‘move out’ the urban ward boundaries from their current city limits to reflect this change. 3. Village Boundary Limits - A subtle but far reaching change in planning policy has been the removal of the tight village boundaries that covered most of our larger rural settlements. Previously a tight settlement boundary was drawn around the villages. This made residential development outside of it more difficult, as the village only related to the area within the settlement boundary. The removal of this as part of planning policy changes meant that if there was a thematic ‘golden thread’ that could be argued for residential development, then the proposed development could be permissible. This opened up the fields that surrounded a village for potential development. An example of this in practice would be at Eden Gate in Houghton. The site lay beyond the village boundary but a relaxation of this policy allowed the site to be progressed. Public Transport In terms of public transportation, the main changes since the last review has related to the rural bus service. Over the last four years a number of local services 7 Carlisle City Council Conservative Group | Submission on warding arrangements. that operate in the rural areas have either had a reduced schedule or have ceased as subsidies were removed. In 2014 of the 74 such services in Cumbria, 24 were cut. Other villages found themselves with a service that ran perhaps twice a week. This has affected the ability of some residents in villages to access services. Three small scale voluntary led services (the Border Rambler) have been established but the scale has not replicated the extent of the services that previously were there. Whilst you can get from the larger settlements, such as Brampton to Carlisle several times a day, the odds are that to commute from the remoter villages to Carlisle you will require access to a car.