Conservative politicians walk out of Three Rivers District Council meeting in protest at electoral boundary changes

5:30pm Wednesday 9th January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Ben Endley, Senior reporter

Conservative politicians stormed out of a Three Rivers District Council meeting last night in protest at proposed changes to electoral boundaries.

The extraordinary council meeting was called to discuss the council’s submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBC) on how they intend to restructure wards when the number of councillors is reduced from 48 to 39 in 2014.

The reduction in the number of councillors will save Three Rivers £41,229 per year in members’ allowances and will also restructure the district so all wards are represented by three councillors.

The proposal will see around 4,500 voters move between polling districts, meaning 95 per cent of electors will continue to vote at the same polling station.

But 15 minutes into the meeting Councillor Chris Hayward, the Tory leader, accused his Lib Dem colleagues of "pure, unadulterated gerrymandering" and said the item had "no democratic legitimacy".

He said: "What a shambles and a disgrace.

"And so desperate and underhand are the Liberal Democrats that they don’t even have the courage to submit their proposals to the LGBC with their party label on it preferring to hide their partisan proposals behind the council’s cloak of respectability.

"The LGBC are not fools. They will see straight through this sham and we and the residents of this district will help us to do so.

"The Conservative group will have no truck with such blatant gerrymandering. We will submit our own proposals to the LGBC which will put local people and their interests first rather than narrow party political gain."

Prior to the departure of the Conservative group, Councillor Matthew Bedford had commended the proposals to the council.

He said "It is in fact the least worst option in the areas where it has been most difficult to come up with a good option.

"We did try to have a consultative process but the Conservative proposals included some quite bizarre ward boundaries."

Council leader Ann Shaw attacked the Conservative’s proposal and accused them of attempting to separate the wealthy areas from the poorer ones.

She said: "A great deal of time and thought has gone into these proposals. We have got to accept the LGBC elects by thirds.

"The key thing is to respect our communities and we do not accept the Conservatives views which propose keeping people apart because they are not compatible.

"Our communities will be poorer if they are limited to social-economic groupings.

"When people walk out of a meeting like this it is because they have nothing convincing to say."

Labour deputy leader Councillor Steve Cox said: "We have seen the Conservatives’ proposal for 39 seats, it is on the boundary commission website and it is a moral outrage.

"You have got one area that stands out as a community, South Oxhey, and the Conservatives want to divide it three ways.

"The proposals that come through the council tonight are the council’s and we are most happy to support them."

The proposal - which was supported by the remaining councillors - will now be submitted to LGBC on behalf of the council.

Comments(30)

pr76uk says...
6:00pm Wed 9 Jan 13

This is the same Conservative group that wanted to lump Mill End (served magnificently by Lib Dems), in with Central Rickmansworth (Tory, expensive housing). Wasn't their initial proposal for even fewer seats (30 IIRC) anyway?

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Mohandas says...
6:19pm Wed 9 Jan 13

The turn outs in local elections is sooo poor that a reduction, changes will not be noticed by voters who are fed up with looking at a political class that seems to be attracting the Dorian Greys.

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Sanity 750 says...
6:30pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Mohandas (Councillor Meerabux) don’t you see yourself as part of the political class??

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Sara says...
6:50pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Much of the Conservative proposals are taken up with talking about the socioeconomic class of local communities and trying to pair them together. For instance their submission contains the natural community of Leavesden and Sarratt paired together.

The Conservatives could have put forward their own submission to the council or sought to amend the council's submission (which far from being a Lib Dem solo effort had the support of the Labour group) but instead chose to dawdle (no storming) out of the council chamber.

If someone refuses to engage in any form of discussion or debate, it usually means they think they have lost the argument. By refusing to argue the case, the Conservatives have let down the residents that they were elected to represent.

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MarsLander says...
8:52pm Wed 9 Jan 13

If politiicians are allowed to write the rules then in all probability there will be gerrymandering.

The tories are right.

If the shoe were on the other foot I have little doubt the Tories or Labour would do exactly the same trick.

They're all as bad as each other so you can have little sympathy for the tories in this case.

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Sara says...
9:09pm Wed 9 Jan 13

The proposal is not 'writing the rules'. Only the independent Local Government Boundary Commission for England can decide the boundaries.

What was put forward was a proposal for debate and decision. Sadly the Conservatives did not participate in either the debate or the decision. That was their choice.

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LSC says...
9:16pm Wed 9 Jan 13

£41,000 doesn't seem a lot of money (in local council terms) to save, considering something as important as boundary changes where people might feel they are suddenly part of an area where the majority may not share their views or face the same challenges that they do and therefore they will not be represented.

Why doesn't each party make a suggestion as to what it wants, put it in it's manifesto and then at the next election the public will decide.
I THINK that is democracy.

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Sara says...
9:25pm Wed 9 Jan 13

The LGBCE puts all the submissions out to public consultation, so residents can have their say.

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LSC says...
9:31pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Sara wrote:
The LGBCE puts all the submissions out to public consultation, so residents can have their say.
If that is the case, what were the Tories scared of? Make their case and the public will agree/object to the LGBCE and we take it from there.
Or am I missing something?

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Sara says...
9:35pm Wed 9 Jan 13

LSC wrote:
Sara wrote:
The LGBCE puts all the submissions out to public consultation, so residents can have their say.
If that is the case, what were the Tories scared of? Make their case and the public will agree/object to the LGBCE and we take it from there.
Or am I missing something?
Nope, you are not missing anything @LSC - we were all as bemused as you. If I think I'm right and someone else is wrong I stand my ground and debate, not flounce out.

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MarsLander says...
9:45pm Wed 9 Jan 13

The tories are lost and disillusioned nationally so they are probably all pretty fed up anyway.

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ralphsangster says...
5:19pm Thu 10 Jan 13

Interesting remarks generally from the Lib Dem and Labour Groups. The usual reverse snobbery comments scattered with innuendo and continent-truths, as would be expected. No wonder politicians generally get a bad press. My remarks are therefore intended to at least give balance to the debate.

The reason we are compelled to have three member wards is the Liberal Democrat Administrations insistance on holding elections by thirds. If we held one off elections every 4 years it would save significant sums of money and allow the Boundary Commission to agree the establishment of one and two member wards. This would permit communities who do not fit easily into a uniform three member structure to be accommodated.

Comments regarding the Conservative Submission on warding arrangements are somewhat premature. We have not yet submitted our proposals. The information on the LGBC website relates to the Council Size consultation not the warding arrangements.

Our problem with the LibDem/Labour proposals on warding is that they were not debated in any of the normal committee or consultative panels of the Council. They were presented at the Special Council meeting as a done deal between both of them. We could have debated the proposal all night and it would still have been approved. Our action at the meeting was to draw attention to the way in which the process had been hijacked by the Administration to put their partisan proposals forward as representing those of the Council as whole. Seems to me from the press coverage and comments that we achieved what we set out to do. Draw the issue to the attention of the public

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ralphsangster says...
5:28pm Thu 10 Jan 13

Just a quick note to correct the typo in the first paragraph of the above posting. Should of course be convenient-truths not continent-truths although maybe it was meant to be.

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Sara says...
6:04pm Thu 10 Jan 13

The ward proposals put forward By the Consevatives can be seen at http://www.lgbce.org
.uk/__documents/lgbc
e/submissions/three-
rivers-fer/council-s
ize/swhertsconservat
iveassociation-2012-
08-29.pdf. If they did not mean them to be suggestions for ward boundaries, why did they put them forward in such detail?

The decision to have 39 members was agreed by the independent LGBCE after submissions made by all council groups.

The majority of Councillors supported elections by thirds (i.e. every year except County Council year) because it concentrates the mind of Councillors if control of he council can change every year. It's oe of the reasons why over the past few years the increases in Three Rivers part of the council tax have been far lower than those of the Conservative run county council.

I must remember Cllr Sangster's distaste for motions which have 'not debated in any of the normal committee or consultative panels of the Council' when he stands up next month to present his budget proposals totally unseen by the restbof the council before the meeting or when the Conservative group submit a motion for debate and agreement which only they have previously discussed. These are of course the motions which last year were described by a then Conservative councillor as 'most ludicrous'.

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MarsLander says...
6:13pm Thu 10 Jan 13

"The majority of Councillors supported elections by thirds..."

The majority of councillors are Liberals, are they not? You hold an absolute majority so what you say goes. Decisions can be taken behind closed doors and presented at later meetings as "democratic".

You make it sound democratic when really what you are saying is "we, the lib dems, decided..."

(From your website)
The Council is composed of 48 Councillors who are each elected to serve for four years and are divided into the following political groups, as of May 2012:

Liberal Democrats: 28
Conservative: 13
Labour: 6
Independent: 1

Absolute majority = reduced democracy.

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Sara says...
6:19pm Thu 10 Jan 13

In this case we were supported by the Labour group. No decisions behind loosed doors either.

Representative democracy is a well respected method of decision making, but in this case, the independent LGBCE gets to make the decision.

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ralphsangster says...
8:45pm Thu 10 Jan 13

Interesting use of words by Cllr Sara Bedford – Representative Democracy. At the risk of sounding like a Liberal Democrat pining for proportional representation the Conservative vote throughout the District is approximately 15,500. The Liberal Democrat vote is approximately 14,500. There are 28 Liberal Democrat Councillors 13 Conservative. That means it takes twice as many Conservative votes to elect a councillor as it does Liberal Democrat. You can now understand why the Liberal Democrat warding arrangements have such significance for them.

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LSC says...
9:38pm Thu 10 Jan 13

I'm afraid you have all fallen too deeply into politic-speak for a simple prole like me to understand.

What it sounds like (from all sides) is this:

I represent the Womble Party and I'd love to be a councillor. I demand boundries are re-drawn into wiggly lines that make sure the ward I stand in includes all the Womble Party supporters. That way I get to be on the council and am important.

What is being forgotten is that people should come before party, and every person should have representation regardless of how they voted. Councillors, you should represent an area, not a party.

I'm sick of hearing 'A' party wants this, but 'B' party wants that. What I want to hear is 'X' area residents want this, but 'Y' area residents want that.
But we never hear arguments on those lines these days. It is all inter-party squabbling for the sake of it and quite frankly it is no wonder people don't bother voting.

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RobBob says...
9:12pm Mon 14 Jan 13

Why was an emergency meeting required to debate this? Why hadn't the proposals been looked at by working parties or executive commitee? Why weren't residents associations consulted as the Boundary Commission advises? But.... more impotantly the figures presented to the council and passed were WRONG. Accordiing to TRDC Carpenders Park has 2648 electorate well this figure is actually 4100. How can they get fundemental data like this wrong? And now what do they do..... pass it onto the Boundary Commision.

As other people have mentioned this seems all about councillors and parties and not about what the people want.

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Sara says...
9:22pm Mon 14 Jan 13

ralphsangster wrote:
Interesting use of words by Cllr Sara Bedford – Representative Democracy. At the risk of sounding like a Liberal Democrat pining for proportional representation the Conservative vote throughout the District is approximately 15,500. The Liberal Democrat vote is approximately 14,500. There are 28 Liberal Democrat Councillors 13 Conservative. That means it takes twice as many Conservative votes to elect a councillor as it does Liberal Democrat. You can now understand why the Liberal Democrat warding arrangements have such significance for them.
This is incorrect. At the last three rounds of local elections, which have elected the current council, the Liberal Democrats gained more votes than any other party.

If Cllr Sangster's party wanted to support a more proportional form of election, they had their chance in May 2011.

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Sara says...
9:31pm Mon 14 Jan 13

An emergency meeting was held to discuss various issues (not just the boundaries) for which the information wasn't available at the previous meeting and which need to be agreed before the next one.

The correct figure for the Carpenders Park electorate is on the submission, the lower figure is for warding purposes.

Some Councillors have consulted their residents - for instance in leaflets and e-bulletins - and all residents and other community groups were written to and invited to respond.

And sorry @LSC, if getting onto the council doesn't make you important ;)

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RobBob says...
10:33pm Mon 14 Jan 13

"Some Councillors have consulted their residents - for instance in leaflets and e-bulletins - and all residents and other community groups were written to and invited to respond."

Sad to say Sara I know of two residents associations who were not contacted.

"Some councillors"- Oh thats great!!!

Don't remember any leaflets from Conservative, Lib dem, Labour highlighting these changes. Maybe you could give some examples?

"The correct figure for the Carpenders Park electorate is on the submission, the lower figure is for warding purposes"- So the council had incorrect figures represented. Maybe you would kindly post the correct figures here for all of the South East wards or post them on the TRDC website.

To me the figures don't add up!

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Sara says...
6:07am Tue 15 Jan 13

I can only speak for myself and those Councillors that I know put in in their leaflets etc. and that was quite a few. The LGBCE also wrote to a large group of residents groups etc and this round of consultation was publicised at least twice by the Watford Observer (the previous round having been similarly publicised).

The figure of 4142 for Carpenders Park is in the papers for last Tuesday's council meeting which are, like all council papers, publicly available on the council's web site.

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RobBob says...
2:13pm Tue 15 Jan 13

Sara, I have just looked at those papers and the figures do not add up. In fact I searched for 4142 and look what comes up!

Oxhey Hall DCH 4142

This is not Carpenders Park! So maybe Sara you need to read the documents more carefully and not just vote on policy but actually listen to the views of the community.

I am sorry to say I don't get the free Observer (if there still is one) and very often don't purchase the main paper.

I haven't had any political litter (information) over the past months, can only suggest this is because there is not an election round the corner. My councillors made no effort to contact the electorate and again I can say that at no time were the residents associations in my area contacted.... by anyone!

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Sara says...
2:32pm Tue 15 Jan 13

I don't know where you live, so I can't comment on leaflets. I just know I put it into all the wrd leaflets that I edited, which is quite a few. I don't know if it was in the Free, as I don't get it delivered either, but it was in the paid for paper and on this web site.

I can read perfectly well. DCH is the polling district of Carpenders Park and is listed with DCA, the polling district of Oxhey Hall under 'Carpenders Park & Oxhey Hall'. All the electoral numbers are broken down into polling districts. Carpenders Park and Oxhey Hall are amongst the small number of wards which only have one polling district.

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RobBob says...
5:10pm Tue 15 Jan 13

I live in Carpenders Park.... so what have the Lib Dems sent out recently?
All we ever seem to get is LIb dem vs Tory leaflets arguing over who is going to get the road fixed or where the next salt bin is to be placed!

The proposals suggest splitting up the estate..... which has already lost its Watford MP, and now TRDC think they can split the estate into two by a mostly underground stream! All the arguments used not to split up South Oxhey can be used (and even more so) for Carpenders Park.

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Sara says...
5:40pm Tue 15 Jan 13

The question is not whether Carpenders Park goes with part of South Oxhey, but how much does.


I know that some information did go out in Carpenders Park, but I am at the other end of the District.

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RobBob says...
5:46pm Tue 15 Jan 13

The question is why?

It has a community of 4200 voters (with a good turn out). It is separated by a railway line that has already been used to separate Carpenders Park from South Oxhey by Three Rivers/ Watford Rural Parish Council and the Boundary Commission changing our MP to Hertsmere.

Why not suggest to Hertsmere that they take take Carpenders Park for council elections as well!

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RobBob says...
5:47pm Tue 15 Jan 13

Maybe the question should be how much South Oxhey goes with Carpenders Park?

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Sara says...
6:04pm Tue 15 Jan 13

That's a question as well!

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