Boundary Review *2nd Update*

Boundary Commission publish draft recommendations

The Commission are now consulting on the proposed new warding arrangements for Basildon Borough

 

Doubtless you will all remember my last blog on this subject back in August, following the vote at Basildon Council in July on new ward boundaries (you could scarcely have forgotten something so riveting and memorable). These proposals were submitted to the Local Government Boundary Commission as part of their review - the first of its kind in Basildon for 20 years. The purpose of the review is to ensure borough councillors represent similar sized electorates. Those proposals have now been considered, along with other submissions made in the recent consultation, and the Commission has published its draft recommendations. These are now open for further public consultation and some of you may have seen the Facebook ads (sadly, the comments from the public on the ads continue to evince little understanding of the purpose of the exercise and underscore the ongoing difficulties in enabling non-politicos to engage constructively with this process).

Just as a reminder, the current ward boundaries are below:

CURRENT WARD BOUNDARIES (since 2002):

 

 

 

 

 

Billericay and Wickford

I suppose the headline for my own ward in particular, and Billericay in general, it that it is mostly 'no change'. Fortunately, the Commission has rejected the wacky counter-proposals put forward by Basildon Labour, which would have entailed wholesale change to the Billericay wards. Under the proposals put forward by the Conservatives, adopted by both the Council and now the Commission, the boundaries of both my Billericay East ward and neighbouring Billericay West will remain unchanged. The only change proposed to Burstead is the inclusion of Steeple View to the south. The A127 will then form the southern boundary of the ward.

This is a very sensible outcome for Billericay. It means that the East and West borough wards will continue to be coterminous with the Town Council wards. Burstead is already physically large, comprised of the South-West ward of the town and the separate parishes of Little Burstead and Great Burstead & South Green. Despite that, the ward still has too few electors but Labour proposed a ridiculous 'uber-ward' that would have stretched almost the entire length of the borough into Wickford. Bringing Steeple View alone into Burstead is a more sensible and measured solution.

Another consequence of the Commission’s wise decision is that the A127 will remain the natural boundary between the north and south of the borough, whereas Labour proposed moving both Steeple View and Noak Bridge into Laindon Park to create a new ‘Laindon North’ ward, which would have straddled the arterial road. It made no sense to do that when the arterial is a natural and obvious boundary feature.

Looking at some of the consultation comments from Billericay residents there was, predictably, a suggestion that Billericay should be removed from Basildon Borough altogether. That would, however, not fall within the scope of a ward boundary review but would require a ‘Principal Area Boundary Review’, reviewing the boundaries of whole districts and boroughs, which is an entirely separate (and much more complicated) process. There were also suggestions from Billericay residents that Queen’s Park should have its own ward or that South Green should be included in a Billericay ward rather than Burstead. Queen’s Park is not big enough to be a ward on its own but it does form the bulk of Billericay West. South Green is part of the Parish of Great Burstead & South Green and has its own parish council, so its continued inclusion in Burstead is also sensible – though I grew up in South Green, so I am well aware that most South Green residents make no such distinctions and regard themselves firmly as Billericians! 

I realise that the changes to the rest of the borough are of limited interest to my constituents in Billericay but, for the purposes of this blog, I shall go through them. Having divested it of Steeple View, the proposal is that the remainder of Crouch – namely the parishes of Noak Bridge, Ramsden Bellhouse and Ramsden Crays – will be combined with the western area of Wickford that currently falls within Wickford Castledon. This ward is being provisionally called ‘Crouch’ though I have said I think ‘Castledon & Crouch’ would preserve the separate identity of the part of Wickford joining the ward.

The only area in which the Commission has demurred with the Council in Wickford is in the precise allocation of polling districts, apparently arising from a miscalculation of electors in the Bromfords area. The Commission proposes transferring an area around Wickford High Street into an enlarged Wickford Park ward instead, using the River Crouch as a boundary. With Wickford North remaining unchanged, I had proposed that it would be sensible to rename Wickford Park as ‘Wickford South’ but this has not been adopted by the Commission as this time. The Commission report would seem to indicate, interestingly, that I was the only consultee who commented upon ward naming at all! So none of my naming suggestions have been adopted, as I was the only one who suggested them.

Laindon, Basildon and Pitsea

Moving south of the '127, the Commission have endorsed our proposals that the current Laindon Park, Lee Chapel North and Pitsea North-West wards should remain unchanged and have rejected Labour’s extensive proposed alterations. The Commission has slightly modified our proposals for Langdon Hills by moving the Westley Green area into the ward as well as Lee Chapel South.  

The Commission's proposals for the New Town itself differ substantially from those proposed by both the Council and Labour. Instead, it has opted for a modified version of proposals put forward by an unnamed local resident (which just goes to show it is well worth having your say!). With Westley Green moving into the new Langdon Hills ward, the Commission propose a modified Nethermayne ward, with the boundary running along Clay Hill Road and London Road, with the southern part of Vange transferred into that ward. The remaining northern part of Vange around Honeypot Lane would then be tacked onto the end of St. Martin’s. Whereas we had proposed to break up Fryerns, the Commission propose no changes there.

The resident proposed renaming St. Martin’s as ‘Barstable’. There was formerly a ward by that name but it was abolished in 1979. I have no idea what the boundaries looked like but I believe it became part of what was later known as ‘Fryerns Central’ (that too was abolished in 2002).

Pitsea South-East remains largely unchanged, as we advocated, but the Commission propose to snip a little off the western tip, north of London Road and west of Clay Hill Road, and add that into their new ‘Nethermayne’ ward.

 

PROPOSED NEW BOUNDARIES (Draft Commission Proposals):

Conclusion

The Commission recommendations seem measured and sensible. I am pleased that Labour’s wacky counter-proposals have been rejected and the Commission is not advancing widespread changes in the main Billericay wards, the boundaries of which have now been firmly established for well over 40 years. The addition of Steeple View to Burstead is a measured and reasonable solution there and the changes proposed for Crouch and the Wickford seats are minimally disruptive. I am gratified, also, that Laindon and Pitsea emerge relatively unscathed. The Commission proposals for the New Town differ from those we proposed but make sense. It is, however, a shame to lose Vange. There has been a ward named Vange ever since the formation of Basildon District Council in 1973 and the areas has a very strong sense of identity.

In my August blog, I asked ‘What’s in a name?’, referencing the passionate protestations of Councillor Davies (Lab, Fryerns) over the loss of his ward. Reading through the various submissions to the consultation, it does seem that I was the only respondent to make proposals in respect of what wards should be called. These things, of course, are not necessarily at the forefront of people's minds but I do think that they matter hugely, as that sense of identification within local communities is essential to effective political engagement.

The Commission did not take up any of my naming submissions, as nobody else commented on that aspect. For what it’s worth, I still think the name Burstead can safely be retained under the new ward boundaries but I remain of the view that it may be worth considering ‘Castledon & Crouch’ for the new ward. I shall defer to people from there, obviously, but it seems to me that there was a separate Castledon ward from 1973 until 1979, after which it became part of the new Wickford South ward. This, in turn, became Wickford Castledon in 2002. With much of that ward now being added to Crouch, the rest of which is made up of small hamlets and villages, all of whom have their own local parish councils and many of which identify more closely with Billericay than Wickford, I think it might be prudent to retain the Castledon name.

Westley Green is already closely identified with Langdon Hills but I still think it should be 'Langdon Hills & Lee Chapel South'. There were actually a few comments around the Pitsea seats, particularly relating to the Parish of Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet. Looking at the interactive map on the Commission website, which allows you to overlay the ward boundaries with the parish boundaries, again I shall defer to the affected residents, but I think it might be sensible to rename Pitsea North-West rather more straightforwardly as ‘Pitsea North’ and Pitsea South-East as ‘Pitsea South, Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet’ – rather long, I grant you, but with an elegant ring to it.

As for the New Town wards, in my previous submission I advocated ‘Basildon Town East’, ‘Basildon Town North’ and ‘Basildon Town South & Vange’. In light of the Commission’s revised proposals, it does seem sensible to retain the name Fryerns for the unaltered ward. One resident suggested St. Martin’s be renamed ‘Barstable’. This was another old pre-1979 ward and might be an artful solution. Likewise, somebody suggested that Nethermayne be renamed ‘Clay Hill’ but that is just swapping one road name for another. 'Kingswood' might be a more salubrious name for the ward. I did consider proposing that this ward be called 'Vange' but, although the proposed boundaries are not dissimilar to the old pre-2002 Vange, a large part of the area that people generally regard as Vange is effectively going to be split in half. One solution might be to rename St. Martin's as 'Vange North & Barstable' and Nethermayne as 'Vange South & Kingswood'. I suspect I may be alone in caring, however. 

 

What next?

Residents can comment on the Commission’s draft proposals via the consultation portal or by emailing reviews@lgbce.org.uk

Alternatively, as ever, if you are ‘old school’ you can write to:

The Review Officer (Basildon)
LGBCE
P.O. Box 133
Blyth
NE24 9FE.

 

The consultation closes on December 12th, 2022.

 

When this second consultation is concluded, the Commission will analyse the submissions and form its final recommendations, which will be published in February 2023. An Order will then be laid before Parliament and, once approved, those will be the boundaries on which we will fight an ‘all-out’ election in May 2024 and elect all 42 borough councillors under the new warding arrangements.

 

Sexy, exciting stuff, I’m sure you’ll all agree!