Councillor submissions to the Hampshire County Council electoral review This PDF document contains submissions from Councillors surnames A-Z. Some versions of Adobe allow the viewer to move quickly between bookmarks. Hinds, Alex From: Mayers, Mishka on behalf of reviews Sent: 11 January 2016 09:11 To: Hinds, Alex Subject: FW: Hampshire County Council -----Original Message----- From: Collett, Cllr A P Sent: 10 January 2016 19:37 To: reviews <[email protected]> Subject: Hampshire County Council Dear Sir/Madam, Whilst I support Hampshire County Council's response to your Draft Recommendations on a new pattern of Divisions with regard to Hart District, I do have one additional major concern that I need to draw to your attention. I agree with Hampshire County Council that: 1. "Blackwater" should be added to the name of the proposed Fleet North & Yateley East Division. I support the desire to keep division names brief, but without "Blackwater" the name will be alien to residents of a large proportion of the division and this will undermine the community interests and identities criterion, with little corresponding benefit to justify leaving it out. 2. It would be better to leave Dogmersfield in the proposed Odiham & Hook Division. Although moving Dogmersfield parish into the proposed Hartley Wintney & Yateley West Division creates a very marginal improvement in electoral equality, this would be at the cost of splitting the Odiham district council ward across the two divisions unnecessarily. Also, given that Winchfield (in the proposed Hartley Wintney & Yateley West Division) has been identified as the proposed location of a new town in the emerging Hart Local Plan, increasing the "starting" electorate of this division unnecessarily would mean that the electorate would exceed the +10% from the average tolerance sooner, and by a greater extent, thereby undermining the electoral equality criteria to a greater extent than the benefit achieved by putting Dogmersfield into this division would justify. 3. The consequential changes to the Yateley parish wards should be based on the recent Community Governance Review rather than the earlier proposals from the Hart District Council ward boundary review, which were never implemented. As the recent CGR has created a local consensus, which meets all three of the Commission's criteria very well, it would be a great shame to go back to the larger, and less community-focussed, wards which were proposed as a consequence of the last Hart District Council ward boundary review. All that is needed is to create the new one-member "Yateley North" parish ward, as proposed by you, and reduce the number of town councillors representing the Yateley Centre ward from three to two. All the other CGR parish wards fit your proposals very neatly. The other area of concern that I have is the proposed boundary between the Fleet Town and the Fleet North & Yateley East divisions. The current proposals clearly meet the electoral equality criterion very well and the use of the railway line as a boundary is obviously attractive, so it is understandable why this has been proposed. The use of this boundary, however, comes at a cost which warrants further consideration. There is an alternative proposal, which is equally good in electoral equality terms, but which avoids the pitfalls of the current proposals and brings several clear advantages. So what is wrong with the current proposal? Firstly, using the railway line as a boundary leads to splitting Elvetham Heath parish between two divisions, with a consequential requirement that the parish be split into two parish wards. This may not seem important, but Elvetham Heath is a new community, which did not exist at all 15-20 years ago and they are working hard to create a united and harmonious identity. What they are achieving is astonishingly good, with many hundreds turning out for community events and the parish council winning all sorts of awards for their creative and successful work on community development. Splitting the parish into two wards brings with it the danger of creating an "us and them" situation, which is so often seen on other councils and which does not exist at the moment. This would fly in the face of both the 1 Local Boundary Commission for England Consultation Portal Page 1 of 1 Hampshire County Personal Details: Name: Andrew Joy E-mail: Postcode: Organisation Name: Hampshire County Council Feature Annotations Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database rights 2013. Map Features: Annotation 1: The outline shown encompasses the contiguous and cohesive community of Alton & Holybourne with the CPs of Chawton and Farringdon. The latter CPs are included solely to appease the LGBCE aversion to 'doughnut' divisions and thus split Alton Rural. Comment text: The outline shown above reflects an attempt to accommodate the LGBCE's open reluctance to accept 'doughnut' divisions by including Chawton CP and Farringdon CP with the existing Alton Town Division. The outline could reasonably include Shalden and/or Lasham in place of Chawton and Farringdon but both alternatives are included for the sole purpose of appeasing the LGBCE's aversion to doughnut divisions. I most strongly advocate retention of the existing Alton Town division WHICH INCLUDES HOLYBOURNE. Electoral equality is highly desirable providing it takes adequate account of the geographical dispersion of the electorate. In this case Alton Rural, with circa 19 rural parishes over some 90 square miles, has not only a very different character to the urban settlement of Alton & Holybourne but requires a very different type of engagement. It is reasonable and justifiable to seek to balance the electoral numbers but this should take proper account of the degree of dispersion of the electorate. Clearly, administration and support of an urban conurbation is logistically and logically more achievable than a widely dispersed and fragmented group of communities. The proposal put forward by the LGBCE achieves electoral equality in numerical terms but in so doing separates Alton and Holybourne. Both are inextricably bound within a single Alton CP boundary, coincident with the Parish Boundary. Holybourne is represented within Alton Town Council and is served necessarily, effectively and conveniently by it. The EHDC ward of Holybourne & Froyle comprises Holybourne, which is contiguous with Alton and wholly urban, with the three rural parishes of Froyle, Lasham and Shalden. Hampshire County Council's response to the proposals counters with a suggestion that Lasham and Shalden CPs are included with Alton Town whilst accepting the concept of removing Holybourne from the Alton Town Division. Again this is solely in response to a perceived determination by the LGBCE to drive a wedge in the apparent doughnut surrounding Alton Town whilst attempting to reduce the impact of the LGBCE proposals. It is worth observing that every division in Hampshire and elsewhere, other than those edged by water, are surrounded by another division or divisions. LBGCE state they are not normally inclined to adopt a doughnut division on the basis that 'such a division pattern is unlikely to reflect community identities and interests or communication links in the rural area'. The rural concerns and interests of the villages are quite distinct from those of the urban settlement of Alton and Holybourne. Alton and Holybourne share effective transport links, are bound by a group of residents' associations and share health, shopping, social and leisure facilities. Both are directly and immediately served by two secondary schools and Alton College. Most importantly, the District ward boundary between Alton and Holybourne, on which the LGBCE proposed Division boundary is based, is indistinct and weak. I suggest that the legal obligation to effect electoral equality can best be achieved in terms of equality of ability to serve the electorate which is based predominantly on numbers but takes account of geographical dispersion and accessibility. As for the statutory criteria to recognise both community identity and interests with effective and convenient local government, the proposals achieve neither. It is concerning that the proposals fail to achieve two of the three statutory criteria. Both Alton Town Council, within which Holybourne is directly represented, and the Holybourne Village Association have unanimously objected to the proposed severance of shared County Council representation. The current arrangement works well and achieves balanced consideration of the needs of both the rural and urban communities. Cllr Andrew Joy Hampshire County Cllr, Alton Town Division Executive Member for Communities, Partnerships & External Affairs Uploaded Documents: None Uploaded https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/print/informed-representation/6654 11/01/2016 secondary schools and Alton College. Most importantly, the District ward boundary between Alton and Holybourne, on which the proposed Division boundary is based, is indistinct and weak. LGBCE state , in the brief explanatory note, that they are not normally (my italics) inclined to adopt a 'doughnut' division on the basis that 'such a division pattern is unlikely to reflect community identities and interests or communication links in the rural area'. Where such a division pattern is extremely effective, as here, I trust that there is therefore scope for this to be considered. The common rural concerns and interests of the villages are quite distinct from those of the urban settlement of Alton and Holybourne. The proposal to extricate Holybourne from its embedded position within Alton Town appears to serve only one main purpose; to enable a break of the 'doughnut' by combining Alton Town with outlying parishes. The latest HCC proposal to include only Lasham and Shalden parishes within an Alton Town division shorn of its Holybourne ward, moderates the LGBCE proposal somewhat but still cannot overcome the failure to meet two of the three statutory criteria. Having given this long and hard thought, I can currently see only two options: Either 1.