Local Resident Submissions to the Bristol City Council Electoral Review
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Local resident submissions to the Bristol City Council electoral review This PDF document contains local resident submissions with surnames A. Some versions of Adobe allow the viewer to move quickly between bookmarks. Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 1 of 1 City of Bristol Personal Details: Name: Alan Aburrow E-mail: Postcode: Organisation Name: Feature Annotations 1: Retain houses fronting Eastfield Road and Southmead Road in Westbury/Henleaze Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database rights 2013. Map Features: Annotation 1: Retain houses fronting Eastfield Road and Southmead Road in Westbury/Henleaze Comment text: The proposed boundary between Southmead and Westbury/Henleaze Wards should be repositioned at the REAR of the properties that front Eastfield Road and Southmead Road (at the highlighted location). This would allow these few properties to share the same Ward (Westbury/Henleaze) as the properties on the opposite sides of these sections of Road. I know it is easy to draw a boundary down the centre of a road but this unnecessarily splits communities for no other purpose than simplicity! Uploaded Documents: None Uploaded https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/print/informed-representation/4471 26/01/2015 Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 1 of 1 City of Bristol Personal Details: Name: Alan Aburrow E-mail: Postcode: Organisation Name: Comment text: The Commission’s current proposals for the “new” Wards of Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze represent a poor attempt at trying to make the best of a bad job. This is admitted by the Commission in the details accompanying their proposals: “In formulating our draft recommendations we also considered joining this [Westbury] ward with Henleaze to form a three-member ward. On balance, we have taken the view that two separate wards provide an accurate reflection of community identity in this area. However, we would particularly welcome submissions on the Henleaze and Westbury-on-Trym areas”.The single most important flaw in the proposals is to annex Westbury village from the heart of the existing Westbury Ward into Henleaze and leave the rump in a Ward named “Westbury” that does not even contain the village of Westbury! This indicates a serious error of judgement on the part of the Boundary Commission in their attempt to balance the number of voters for each of Bristol’s 70 councillors. To arbitrarily assume that Falcondale Road is a natural Ward boundary shows a comprehensive lack of understanding by the Boundary Commission which completely ignores the historical development of the area. Falcondale Road is only the “Westbury Bypass” built in the 1920s and not a natural historical neighbourhood boundary at all. The alternative option (within the Commission’s many constraints) would be to retain Westbury with its village in a new Ward with 2 councillors and create a new Henleaze Ward with 1 councillor. However, this would probably be resisted by the residents of Henleaze and make it difficult to redraw the Westbury/Henleaze Ward boundary without creating the same “New Westbury” problem for “New Henleaze”. Therefore, on balance, the simplest option would be to combine the proposed Wards of Westbury (1 councillor) and Henleaze (2 councillors) into a Ward of 3 councillors, named “Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze”.The new Ward should, for historical reasons, be named “Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze” as Westbury’s history as a village stretches back to the 8th century (even pre-dating Bristol by some 200 years). By comparison, Henleaze is the “daughter” of Westbury that only came into being within the last 100 years, or so. Within Bristol, the precedent for not presenting the names of combined Wards in alphabetical order has been set with “Henbury & Brentry”, where Brentry is the much younger sibling of the village of Henbury. Alan Aburrow Uploaded Documents: None Uploaded https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/print/informed-representation/4546 02/02/2015 Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 1 of 2 City of Bristol Personal Details: Name: Rob Acton-Campbell E-mail: Postcode: Organisation Name: n/a Feature Annotations 9: Area with path on north side of the river should be St George not Brislington. 10: Continuation of area 9 path should be in St George not Brislington Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database rights 2013. Map Features: Annotation 1: These houses are accessed from Malvern Road and should be in the same ward Annotation 3: Consider putting this area into St George Central to better equalise numbers between wards. This also seems a more natural boundary Annotation 4: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 5: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 6: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 7: This area of green space should be in the same ward as the houses in Meg Thatchers Green which is where the access is. Annotation 8: Remove the unecessary kink in the boundary so that all Troopers Hill Field (recreation ground) is in the same ward. Annotation 9: Area with path on north side of the river should be St George not Brislington. Annotation Continuation of area 9 path should be in St George not Brislington 10: Comment text: I am resident of St George and Chair of St George Neighbourhood Partnership. These are my personal comments and do not necessarily represent the view of the Partnership or any other organisation. a) I support the revised arrangement of wards in St George overall. The proposed St George Troopers Hill and St George West wards do seem to reflect communities better than the current St George East & West arrangement, in particular the Crews Hole area to the south has very little in common with the north east of St George. b) In principle I prefer single Councillor wards as I think they make it clear to the electors who their representative is and individual Councillors have a smaller area to focus on, it might also encourage more people to stand as independent Councillors if they have a smaller area to canvass. Given the Neighbourhood Partnership structure in Bristol Councillors in adjacent wards should be able to cover in the event of a Councillor being on long term sick or similar. On the other hand I can see that arbitrarily dividing a community is not sensible and so a mixture of 1, 2 and 3 Councillor wards can make sense. I would prefer though if there were more than just 4 single Councillor wards across so that they are seen as normal and not as exceptions. c) Areas of green space that are managed by the Council should be in the same ward as the properties adjacent to the entrances where possible so that residents do not have to deal with different Councillors for their street and their green space, I have marked on the map an area where the boundary needs changing to achieve this. d) Residential streets should not have ward boundaries running down them, the boundary should be along the back of the properties so https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/print/informed-representation/4659 09/02/2015 Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 2 of 2 the whole street is in the same ward. New boundaries should certainly follow this principle and existing boundaries should be adjusted as part of the process unless there is very good reasons not to, again I have marked particular areas on the map. e) The River Avon east to Hanham is part of the City of Bristol, currently and in the proposals this is shown as part of Brislington. However, the towpath along the river which is maintained by the Council is on the St George side, this path (and the river) should therefore be part of the St George Troopers Hill Ward so that it is clear that its whole length is covered by the St George Councillor and St George Neighbourhood Partnership. With the current arrangement this strip of land is in effect a detached part of the Brislington Ward. Uploaded Documents: None Uploaded https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/print/informed-representation/4659 09/02/2015 Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 1 of 2 City of Bristol Personal Details: Name: Rob Acton-Campbell E-mail: Postcode: Organisation Name: n/a Feature Annotations 7: This area of green space should be in the same ward as the houses in Meg Thatchers Green which is where the access is. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database rights 2013. Map Features: Annotation 1: These houses are accessed from Malvern Road and should be in the same ward Annotation 3: Consider putting this area into St George Central to better equalise numbers between wards. This also seems a more natural boundary Annotation 4: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 5: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 6: Move ward boundary so that both sides of residential road are in the same ward. Annotation 7: This area of green space should be in the same ward as the houses in Meg Thatchers Green which is where the access is. Annotation 8: Remove the unecessary kink in the boundary so that all Troopers Hill Field (recreation ground) is in the same ward. Annotation 9: Area with path on north side of the river should be St George not Brislington. Annotation Continuation of area 9 path should be in St George not Brislington 10: Comment text: I am resident of St George and Chair of St George Neighbourhood Partnership.