KINGSTON‐UPON‐HULL LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY...
Transcript of KINGSTON‐UPON‐HULL LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY...
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KINGSTON‐UPON‐HULL LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY REVIEW
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Contents EAST/WEST SPLIT ........................................................................................................................................................... 5
WARD SIZE ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
THE RIVER BOUNDARY ................................................................................................................................................... 8
ELECTORAL EQUALITY .................................................................................................................................................. 10
MARFLEET .................................................................................................................................................................... 13
SOUTHCOATES ............................................................................................................................................................. 13
LONGHILL AND BILTON GRANGE ................................................................................................................................. 14
INGS ............................................................................................................................................................................. 14
SUTTON ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14
HOLDERNESS ................................................................................................................................................................ 15
DRYPOOL ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
KINGSWOOD ................................................................................................................................................................ 17
PICKERING .................................................................................................................................................................... 20
BOOTHFERRY ............................................................................................................................................................... 20
AVENUE ....................................................................................................................................................................... 21
MYTON ........................................................................................................................................................................ 26
NEWINGTON AND ST ANDREWS ................................................................................................................................. 28
ORCHARD PARK ........................................................................................................................................................... 29
UNIVERSITY .................................................................................................................................................................. 31
BEVERLEY AND SCULCOATES WARD ............................................................................................................................ 33
EAST/WEST SPLIT .......................................................................................................................................... 5
WARD SIZE .................................................................................................................................................... 5
THE RIVER BOUNDARY .................................................................................................................................. 8
ELECTORAL EQUALITY ................................................................................................................................. 10
MARFLEET ................................................................................................................................................... 13
SOUTHCOATES ............................................................................................................................................ 13
LONGHILL AND BILTON GRANGE ................................................................................................................. 14
INGS ............................................................................................................................................................. 14
SUTTON ....................................................................................................................................................... 14
HOLDERNESS ............................................................................................................................................... 15
DRYPOOL ..................................................................................................................................................... 15
KINGSWOOD ............................................................................................................................................... 17
PICKERING ................................................................................................................................................... 20
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BOOTHFERRY............................................................................................................................................... 20
AVENUE ....................................................................................................................................................... 21
MYTON ........................................................................................................................................................ 26
NEWINGTON AND ST ANDREWS ................................................................................................................ 28
ORCHARD PARK ........................................................................................................................................... 29
UNIVERSITY ................................................................................................................................................. 31
BEVERLEY AND SCULCOATES WARD ........................................................................................................... 33
Cover Image courtesy of Danny Lawson of PA Images.
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PREFACE
This response reflects the views of the Kingston‐upon‐Hull City Council Conservative Group and is
supported by the local Party as well as many residents who have expressed their concern.
Perhaps we could begin by expressing not concern at a further round of consultation, indeed we
welcome it, but the time‐frame? Having a response over the Summer holidays is more of a strain in terms
of staff holiday time and many citizens are absent. Nevertheless, we welcome the fact there are fresh
proposals and that there is a chance to consult. The Group are also appreciative of the deadline extension
afforded to it – an extension that would not have been necessary had our Council supplied support officer
not, unfortunately, been off sick and the lamentable response within the Council to filling that gap with
any dedicated staff‐time. It had been our intention not to supply yet more alternative lines on a map but
instead robustly critique the facts and how the LGBCE have responded to them. We wanted to produce
maps with parishes, for all faiths, shopping catchment areas, library provision and supporting data so that
if the LGBCE have had regard to these factors we could supply that contra view. The Council’s mapping
section have been excellent in terms of producing maps with known data but, inevitably and rightly, not
all that information is held by the Council. As a result, our submission will not be as robust as we would
wish, but I hope allowances will be made for factors mentioned above. Indeed, it was only after the most
dire invocation of procedures that some staff time was found – and we are in our holiday period too.
When the LGBCE response arrived in the Guildhall we were very mindful that once again the
Council was doing itself no favours by not agreeing a unified response. The Liberal Democrats again
seemed hard to find, they have recently lost their Political Assistant who was the main point of contact,
but we did opine to the Labour group that more lines on the map, except in key areas, seemed a pointless
exercise and thorough appraisal of the facts on which any decision was made would be relevant
However, we feel a few other general words are necessary. When the LGBCE proposals came in
we were surprised to see that there had been little response to reasoned submissions in earlier replies.
Indeed, whilst our last reply ran to 49 pages and over 18,000 words complete with supporting pictures
and verified information acknowledged in 82 footnotes there was a distinct lack of revealed evidence for
LGBCE conclusions reached. We recognise this is the standard LGBCE formula1, for all we know the LGBCE
may find it limiting, but it is very hard to know what the “high standard of evidence” needs to be when
there is no sign of evidence behind the LGBCE thinking in setting their bar.
We are a little surprised at the nature of this consultation. Once again we are sending a reply to
a document that seems fixated on the obligation to ensure each councillor represents approximately the
same number of voters for any boundary review and not the other two strands of seeking to ensure that
the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities that will promote
effective local government. In our resubmission we have again placed emphasis on the three criteria and
very close adherence to paragraph 105,2 this paragraph enjoins us to provide good electoral
equality…reflect community interests and identities with evidence of community links…be based on
1 During the Sedgefield General Election campaign we read the Report on Darlington – as one does! 2 LGBCE, “New Electoral Arrangements for Hull City Council”, June 2017, pp. 25
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strong and easily identifiable boundaries…and help the Council deliver effective local government.
Nowhere does para 150 mention anything about a presumption in favour of three‐member wards which
would surely be a qualifier for any of the preceding points and be spelt out explicitly in the first one: but
it is not.
We note that in our last submission we sent 49 pages of fact‐based detail, including a high number
of pages devoted to Bricknell and Newland with a wealth of detail to bolster the claims Bricknell Ward has
little in common with the university wards around it. The LGBCE continues to support a forced shotgun
marriage between two dissimilar wards, but does so without making clear what the evidence is that we
need to refute. Whilst agreeing there are “...differences between the Bricknell and Newland communities” 3 this is followed merely by an assertion that, “from the evidence we have received, there would appear to
be some links between the Bricknell and Newland communities so we do not consider we have received
the high standard of evidence….4” and no change in the position . However, we hear what is said and
have produced a greater range of evidence whilst not being all that aware which evidence was sufficient
to persuade the LGBCE that there were sufficient links. Indeed we have also, therefore, returned to the
vexed Beverley and Sculcoates question which seemed to be based on the wholly un‐evidenced claims in
the initial Lib Dem Boundary submission for the Beverley and Sculcoates Ward. In both cases we have
revisitied some of the information supplied last time, drawn out wider conclusions, extrapolated the
information more; but we have also offered new evidence which we hope will assist.
Nevertheless, we do recognise the immense difficulty of warding this City, we extend our
sympathies to your staff and also our thanks for their helpful advice which is much appreciated,
particularly Mr Carlsson‐Hyslop who has been tireless in answering queries and we can only hope this
encomium does not ruin his career! Nevertheless our proposals will still place all weight on the three
guiding principles that are to underpin this process:‐
1. ensure each councillor represents approximately the same number of voters
2. ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities
3. promote effective local government
We have also put less lines on maps this time, partly because we are concentrating on general
principles and also for the shortage of time. However, there is an emerging consensus across much of the
City, as ever we probably agree with the LGBCE on more wards, either in whole or in part, than we
disagree. Where there is disagreement earlier solutions have been proposed, and we have not necessarily
disagreed with some Labour proposals either – in whole or in part. Perhaps we could start with a
discussion around some general points of principle?
3 LGBCE, Op. cit, Para 97 4 Ibid.
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EAST/WEST SPLIT
We continue to agree the relative number of councillors either side of the river if we accept the
river can be spanned at a Parliamentary constituency level but not at a council Ward level. We accept it
would be harder to make the numbers balance if a ward did span the river, for would they count as east
or west Hull councillors, but that would not be sufficient reason not to span the river. However, in general,
we agree the split is reasonable and proportionate when dividing the population by the number of
councillors proposed. Agreement of the total number of councillors does not mean that agreeing the
number of councillors, even either side of the River Hull, is an essential pre‐determinant for deciding how
that number of councillors coalesce into Wards. We continue to believe that the manifestation of Wards
should be an organic “bottom up” determination by community not a “top down” imposition of a number
unsupported by evidence as clear as “population, divided by councillors equal 3,217 voters per councillor”.
WARD SIZE
It does seem to us that the LGBCE places undue weight on this and conformity to it. Before the
then Boundary Commission refused to accept our assertions that Kingswood would grow, and so the
existing figure of 60 Councillors made sense despite the dip in the population levels, uniformity of Ward
size had some sense for those addicted to multi‐member Wards. It was the then Boundary Commission
that unleashed the genie of irregular sized wards by refusing to accept Kingswood was a growth area, and
to be absolutely fair they did the City a favour by opening the door for Wards that were more community‐
based than just lines on a map drawn up to make numbers even.
We are in no doubt, however, that the LGBCE gave the Group clear advice that uniformity of Ward
size was essential – indeed it was one of the few doctrinaire matters in my briefing. There was remarkable
pragmatism about whether we had to submit a City‐wide response, and almost everything else, but
definite uniformity on Ward size. That message was reinforced by the fact the Group Leader also heard
it at the Briefing for the Labour Group when the memo failed to advise the correct time for the correct
meeting and he attended what he thought was the open forum.
In our first submission, we did not submit a uniform Ward size. We did so because we placed the
greater weight on the test of community. Quite simply we didn’t want to see community identity and
cohesion sacrificed on the altar of uniformity and conformity – it is just alien to our political, philosophical,
and cultural beliefs. We were therefore delighted that the LGBCE initial proposals agreed with the Liberal
Democrats and us that there could be infinite diversity in infinite combination even though we did not
always agree with the precise lines on the map. It is also possible that the Labour Group too may have
retained two‐member wards had they been so minded and not been more compliant to the initial
instructions.
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It seems that the LGBCE were guided in drawing up these proposals by a recognition that
Kingswood was indeed being what we had said it would be and that it had a strong community identity –
something on which we agree. However, having presumably departed from their initial stance by placing
a weight on another key strand, that of community identity, the LGBCE then seems to have gone down a
road less travelled. A Boundary Commission of an earlier incarnation was supremely relaxed about there
being nine two‐member Wards and at no time mentioned any figure as they deemed the requirement for
electoral equality was met by individual councillors wheresoever they may be and in whatever
combination, all representing approximately the same number of electors. We too feel that the equality
test is best met by applying numerical equality to the individual, for the law is clear it is the individual who
is elected, and that a land‐mass (ward) need not be of similar size by member any more than it is by area.
We, and at that time the other two groups clearly agreed, and felt that the test of community could be
afforded greater weight with flexibility of Ward size.
We are therefore somewhat perplexed at the insistence of the LGBCE in its current incarnation, that
there should be a cap on the number of two‐member Wards. To place such weight on it as they do5
seemingly is a perverse and unsustainable decision which surely must be eminently reviewable? The three
criteria are:‐
1. ensure each councillor represents approximately the same number of voters
2. ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities
3. promote effective local government
It is hard to justify how the number of non‐standard seats is either justifiable or quantifiable let alone
how it fits in with the three criteria. The LGBCE rightly refer to the legal obligation for “ ‘the desirability of
securing that each electoral area of the district council returns an appropriate number of members of the
council’ This means that unless there is very good evidence to do otherwise, we will recommend a uniform
pattern of three‐councillor wards”.6 We challenge the assertion that the legal obligation is measured by
uniformity of Ward size and suggest the test can as easily be met by regarding “appropriate” as being
measured against community needs so long as the ratio of councillors to citizens is consistent. Having
regard to John Stuart Mill’s dictum we are very firmly of the view that “in a really equal democracy, every
or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately” 7 and that it is best to
try to form a coalition of mutual interest. We would sooner live in a homogeneous area where our views
were largely listened to and only have one councillor, than have any greater number of councillors and be
an irrelevant minority overlooked solely for the sake of an abstract concept like uniformity of ward size.
Any small community would regard themselves better represented where they form a cohesive group in
a small ward, than they would feel as a minority in a large ward where they could regard that larger
number of councillors as inappropriate for their needs.
5 LGBCE Op. cit. Para 85 being the most recent iteration of this. Whilst we agree with the logic that 29 Councillors west of the river, itself only a requirement if the River Hull is seen as an insuperable obstacle, means there must be one two‐member ward West of the River, we do not necessarily believe the rest of this paragraph applies as “an inalienable and self‐evident truth”. 6 LGBCE Op. cit. Para 43 citing Paragraph 2 (3) (d) of Schedule 2 to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 7 John Stuart Mill “On Liberty”, Chapter 7.
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The LGBCE8 place reliance on the fact the Council chooses to elect by rotation. For the record, this
does not reflect the view of the Conservative and Unionist Group which remains committed to the more
democratically decisive and cost‐effective view of “all on, all off” in one election every set number of
years. “All on, all off” removes any lingering doubt about wards not being up at the same time, though
there seems little merit in that as an argument if control of the Council cannot change overnight, and
supplies the most effective control over public affairs by meaning that a vote can make a clear difference.
However, we are where we are. Having accepted that we are on a rotating cycle of elections, Hull City
Council has never justified why that means the Council should still be rotating on thirds.
The lazy assumption has always been that the electoral cycle that applied from when Humberside was
created in 1973 should still apply afterwards. Back in 1983 there were 60 councillors on Hull District
Council, a council which had decided to have rotating elections; whereas the Humberside County Council
had decided on all on/all off . In Hull, to ensure smooth administration of elections the rotating thirds
were all designed to fall in the years the County was not up. In the neighbouring north‐bank council they
also had all on/all off elections, not at the same time as the County– there simply was no fixed pattern in
the area. There is no clear justification from either the LGBCE or indeed any entity on Hull City Council
why, when absolutely nothing is the same as in 1992 (now our number of councillors is different, County
Council abolished), we are still trying to keep the same structure for why three member wards on a four
year electoral cycle are a good idea – apart from being a long‐outdated structure to accommodate the
existence of Humberside County Council abolished in 1996.
Equally, there is no justification given why the LGBCE have settled on the number three as being the
most appropriate number of two‐member Wards – it is purely random and if the test of community can
be met better by another number then surely the facts should dictate the number of such wards not the
number of such wards reflect a seemingly randomly selected number? We really are concerned that, in
this matter, the LGBCE are open to serious suggestions of perversity and are not supported by the actions
of their predecessors which suggests a certain corporate memory loss and not enough on transparent and
quantifiable evidence base for decision making. It is odd, and surely undesirable, that while Councils
across our life‐time of Service have been increasingly exposed to more evidence‐based decision making
(over and above the Wednesbury Principles), the Commissioners would appear to be going the opposite
way – or so the man on the Clapham Omnibus may deduce.
The LGBCE say9 “any additional two‐councillor wards would require a very high standard of evidence
for us to deviate from the presumption in favour of three‐councillor wards”. Yes, evidence is needed and
it was presented by us in our last submission to rather more detail than is currently contained in the LGBCE
document, and the key word is “presumption” anyway. What “presumption” an outdated idea that the
Council will elect by a system it has not used since the Boundary Commission themselves rendered it
obsolete in their last review? Our submission, both this one and the last one, will place great reliance on
Wards “based on strong easily identifiable boundaries” and challenge some of the proposals for not
meeting that criteria as well as attempt to shew how our proposals have already and may yet again “reflect
community interests and identities and include evidence of community links”10 although the lamentable
support situation may render the second part of that comment weaker than we would have liked.
8 LGBCE Op. cit. Para 85 9 Ibid 10 LGBCE “Further Draft Recommendations”, June 2017, pp. 25
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Indeed, what of the man on the Clapham omnibus? On returning to the bosom of his family, before
going to call on neighbours and pick up the shopping on the way back from his church does he think “Oh
I am so depressed I only have two councillors not three. We must all move immediately”? We think not.
The number of councillors, or how many different sized seats there are, simply is not a material
consideration for people. There may be a general perception there are too many politicians (until they are
needed of course) but very few citizens anywhere conceptualise the size of a ward they are not situated
in any more than they especially know an ecclesiastical parish if they do not live there.
We have continued therefore to try and draw on our belief in community. We started there with the
lines on the map, we reinforced that with our decisions when looked at on the ground and such
community factors as we were aware of.
THE RIVER BOUNDARY
Historically, the River Hull has been seen as a barrier and there is strong tradition for that. We do
not consider, however, anyone is on strong grounds for persisting in this shibboleth. Once the
Parliamentary Commissioners decided the River Hull could be crossed at its narrowest points, and tacitly
recognised that the building of Kingswood with a large and above average retail offer would appeal to
those at the City boundary just to the west of the river, then life and leisure patterns were not only going
to change but the political boundaries had also breached the river. Whilst it is true no single ward
currently spans the river, it remains incontrovertible that a constituency does and clearly it was not felt
an insuperable barrier for the MP to be able to work around that obstacle.
The River Hull has ceased to be a major river. Users are largely confined to lighters, the days of
trawlers sailing up and down for either the Hull docks or for the Beverley shipyards further up river are a
distant memory. The need, at the widest point, to make Myton Bridge a swing bridge on the A63 was real
at the time the bridge was built and for Stoneferry at the narrowest point in the City boundaries, but today
it is less clear. We are not discussing the Thames or the Mersey here (indeed comparably locally that
would be the Humber) but the Hull is largely a silted up tidal river of such physical negligibility as to be
irrelevant. At the Local Government Association conference, I was chatting to a Birmingham Councillor
who was sure they had a Ward that crossed a river11 but I have not had enough time to follow this up with
hard evidence. What we do have evidence for is the bridge openings this year in Hull:‐
11 I think it’s one of my colleagues has the River Cole on both sides but “it’s not my part of Birmingham”
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This list12 shews the low level of usage on the modern River Hull. Given that the busy bridges
seem to be between Wilmington and Scale Lane it is worth pointing out that the bridges such as Myton
on the A63 was built to a greater height to accommodate ships passing underneath to reduce the number
of openings. The high number of openings are on the Victorian bridges, largely built “at grade”.
Meanwhile the bridge that is the most northerly one in the City has managed only four openings so far
this year. It is becoming not credible to believe the River Hull is an impassable barrier now the river is
barely used commercially at this point.
We remain sympathetic to the LGBCE belief that Kingswood is a cohesive community, we
welcomed the embracing of a temporary low number with future balance achieved by the sustained
population growth – whilst regretting that pragmatism was not shewn earlier when we asked for it at the
time of the last Warding.
However, whilst we shared the LGBCE recognition of the strong Community in Kingswood, we also
recognised there is a community of outlook and interest as well just the other side of the river in the
northern parts of the current Beverley ward who are closer in socio‐economic segmentation terms to the
residents of Kingswood than they are in the frankly incomprehensible proposal to link them to the City
Centre end of Beverley Road. Not only is the socio‐economic segmentation similar but also the good
burghers of Beverley ward clearly do not see the river as an impenetrable barrier either as they happily
shop in Asda, Marks and Spencer, Next etc, a solid segmentation range of shops with convenient parking
12 Sent in an e‐mail from Andy Burton at Hull City Council on 11th August at 15:16 which can be supplied on request.
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rather than go to the City Centre. Indeed, given Hull’s tight boundaries, the residents in fact leave Hull’s
boundaries altogether, entering the East Riding of Yorkshire to use the roundabout at the north of
Beverley Road, rather than driving south down Beverley Road and into the city centre!
We remain agnostic on this point and if the River is not crossed this time we feel certain it will be
next time when the full extent of the commercial and retail offer is known at Kingswood. There is clearly
more in common, by property tenure, employment, etc between the citizens at the north end of Beverley
Ward and those in Kingswood than there is in the strange ward that uses Beverley Road as its spine. We
will address this point further in our submission.
ELECTORAL EQUALITY
It remains our Group’s belief that the only true equality, with the maximum potential for
subsidiarity and closest to community cohesion is one‐member wards of 3,254 or so. It is not clear to us
why the LGBCE are so fixated on three‐member wards over a four‐year cycle which reflects a long‐passed
status quo of 60 councillors and a second council having all‐out elections in the fourth year. Whilst we do
not see much to argue with about a four‐year term, it is no better or worse than any other number
between 1‐5, we are curious why the LGBCE fixate on how many wards have three members and how
many have two. Having started from a theoretical position of expecting all three‐member wards, the
empirical work undertaken meant the LGBCE themselves, wisely and pragmatically, reversed that
position. Once the principle is conceded then the precise number of two‐member and three‐member
Wards becomes academic and there should surely be no need to fixate on an arbitrary figure? Given that
the Council has elected for years by rotation, a view the Conservative and Unionist group still oppose but
we also recognise is not a matter for the LGBCE, then control of the council becomes very difficult to
change at any individual election within the cycle so the number of seats up becomes less material.
With the number of seats becoming less material, it follows that greatest emphasis should not be
on numbers randomly selected but on communities. It cannot be right to tell citizens they are in an
electoral community based around how many wards we want rather than what they experience on the
ground. The 3254 figure is rightly important and something citizens can accept as they consider the
workload and the equality of opportunity of access that presents. However, to be told a citizen has
arbitrarily been placed in a different community to satisfy ward‐size criteria is clearly wrong and
something they will not identify with. People exercise their choice about where to live based on schools,
their church, access to local shops, other facilities on the ground – we are yet to hear of anyone say “I
moved to Acacia Avenue because it was a three‐member ward!”
We place great emphasis on community, we believe in active engagement and a citizenry that feel
they can identify with where they live, impact on decision‐making, and understand they have much in
common with their fellow man. It is of the nature of Cities that they are not necessarily homogenous and
local warding exercises give a chance to reflect Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. When the City
Council blazed a trail for Area Committees it did so recognising that this enabled minorities to evade the
tyranny of the majority, to be free to express themselves and have their concerns addressed. It doesn’t
matter that the Avenues may obsess about planters whilst out on the estates people are wondering how
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they can make ends meet – it is a problem to the citizen and problems may be relative when viewed in
the whole but are absolute to an individual. That was what has freed up so many areas of the City to
recognise their potential – there is no doubt for example that the recently successful Pearson Park
Heritage Lottery Fund Bid would not have happened under the Council monolith that existed hitherto ‐
we know this because we have tried since 1983!
It follows therefore that the local community, aka the ward, should also have a diversity and that
which does not impose the tyranny of the many. John Stuart Mill held that the essence of a democracy
was the right of a minority to become the majority but having the right to vote against a prevailing zeitgeist
is not the same as having an effective opportunity to achieve that. There is little to commend a ward
where a percentage is tacked on to the overwhelming majority, which majority has no sympathy with the
minority. Nor is effective local government achieved by a result that produces two halves which have
little harmony – every politician’s nightmare is the consultation that comes back 50‐50. However this is
expressed, it is not relevant because the obligation on democracy, if it is to survive and flourish, is for it
to be effective. Community is all and we cannot accept the seeming lower weight that has been placed
on this in the priorities that have led us to where we are today.
As a basic tenet, it seems self‐evident that, the LGBCE having accepted plurality of ward size, we
should not set a random number but should seek to maximise how best we can create wards that reflect
the way people live today. A large housing estate built around a local school and series of shops may well
lend itself to a three‐member community, but to create a three member community from a small 1950’s
social Housing estate, ideally suited to being a two member Ward, by attaching a Victorian suburban
estate modelled on St John’s Wood would be to introduce a concept of perpetual alienation from the
democratic process for one of those communities in certain fields of endeavour and, democracy being
what it is, it will be the smaller community that loses out – the very tyranny of the majority that Alexis de
Toqueville and John Stuart Mill warned us against. The classic liberal answer to the tyranny of the majority
is separation of powers and regular elections but, if the regular elections produce the same result then
who listens to the minority? If the separation of powers is to work in practice it also needs to recognise
some separation of communities where those communities have very different outlooks and warding
supplies that option. Civus Kingstonian sum may well reflect a unifying view within the City as people
appeal to a higher concept, but to have some separation of community outlook is inbuilt in the warding
system. That support for plurality should not be argued away by an arbitrary number of wards levelled
after voter equality has been reached and thereby imposing a tyranny on the community in the name of
bureaucratic orthodoxy over‐riding community factors and thus causing alienation which is the antithesis
of good local government.
For these reasons we do not subscribe to any set number of wards but prefer to enhance and
strengthen democracy by prioritising community inclusion and cohesion which, as a society, we rightly talk
about with all minorities except when it comes to social cohesion measured through electoral cohesion.
Both the other parties on the Council not at all surprisingly, have put forward proposals to
gerrymander the seats in a way that is far from beneficial to the Conservative and Unionist interest.
Indeed, the initial Liberal Democrat proposals were risible in carving up the seat with a portion merged
with Orchard Park, a proposal that we criticised as not meeting the three criteria in our response.
However, it is somewhat more surprising that the LGBCE should not only follow that, but persist in doing
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so contrary to the facts we related in our previous submission. Nobody else has yet proffered
incontrovertible reasons why there should be a merger between two dissimilar Wards but, on the basis
of no evidence, and in the face of consistent evidence, the LGBCE somewhat surprisingly goes down the
seemingly perverse route of insisting Bricknell is orientated towards the University. Bricknell has less to
do with the University than even University Ward which has acres of the University and more student
residents than Bricknell but seemingly nobody has ever felt University Ward should be attached to either
Newland or even Avenue let alone Beverley Ward ‐ which has even more student homes than Bricknell.
We will come to the evidence for this in the appropriate part of the response. Nevertheless, this will still
be a City‐wide response as befits the Party which, at the recent General Election, was the one that grew
its vote the most and emerged as the strong challenger to the Labour hegemony, and we will start with
the area of the City where there seems to be the most agreement and consensus, trying to build on that
where we can.
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EAST HULL
In general, we still hold to our proposals contained in the earlier response13 which were [broadly]
to agree with your proposals.
MARFLEET
We are content with the LGBCE’s current proposals, much as we were in the last iteration. As
ever we feel there is a debate to be had over which ward the docks fall in and we remain convinced that
if Hull is to see off the challenge from docks on the south bank of the Humber then the dock interests
would be best off represented by as few wards as possible. Since docks do not form a residential bloc the
precise location of them does not affect electoral calculations and so it is largely academic in which ward
they go but we still believe they should be in as few wards as possible which, we believe, would be a
maximum of three: the western working docks, the central largely leisure docks, and the eastern working
docks.
We welcome the dock proposals and the gaol as mentioned in our previous submission. We see
no reason to take a contrary view in this area to the Labour amended proposals as accepted by the LGBCE.
We are therefore happy to agree with the consensus in this ward.
SOUTHCOATES
We welcome the slight tidying up in this area and are pleased with the dock proposals and the
gaol as mentioned by us in our previous submission.
We note the comments made by the other groups and are happy to support the amended views
of the LGBCE which seem to have produced an agreeable compromise and consensus across the board in
this area.
13 Conservative and Unionist Group Submission, March 2016. (C&U hereafter within the footnotes)
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LONGHILL AND BILTON GRANGE
Again, we were in broad agreement with the LGBCE’s last proposal on this Ward. The minor
alterations proposed and agreed by others seem to us eminently sensible, being marginal calls where the
balance could go either way as it implied in the current LGBCE proposals.
We are, therefore, happy to agree with the current proposals.
INGS
We see no reason to vary our position, from last time, of supporting the LGBCE proposals in this
area. The marginal nature of the newly proposed variations mean again that we are happy to identify
with the emerging consensus.
We are not particularly exercised about the naming of the Ward, it has generally been Ings which
is an historic name reflecting the topography of the area and it was only the County that called it Bellfield
if memory serves.
We are happy to agree with the current proposals and will support whichever name emerges
although we slightly lean towards Ings for continuity.
SUTTON
Again, the proposed alterations are so clearly a judgement call, and indeed Balham Avenue had
exercised our minds in earlier rounds, that we see no reason to argue with the emerging consensus.
We support the amended proposals.
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HOLDERNESS
Originally we said,
“Again the inevitable consequence of decisions taken elsewhere but sensible boundaries which reflect the River Hull to the west, the existing sensible boundary line between Holderness and Drypool to the south, the existing major road and building break between the existing
Holderness and Sutton Ward to the north, and Holderness Road to the east.”14 We “…expressed reluctant support…”15 in our March commentary on the LGBCE proposals
because their proposals seemed to reflect the flip side of our views about what part of the community belonged where – with neither Ward representing an obviously cohesive community either case was supportable. We were, and remain, anxious to secure a negotiated settlement and this was an area that we thought a consensus could emerge if we were not too dogmatic about areas that seem hard to prove they are a natural community with even the most cursory drive through on the ground let alone a reading of the data.
Since the LGBCE seem to have aligned themselves more neatly to our original position we can offer
support for this area whilst also indicating if the other two Groups, the LGBCE, and the community can reach a settled position we will not be dogmatic and prevent that consensus.
DRYPOOL
As the LGBCE record16 we reluctantly supported their proposals, our consistent view17 having been
that the status quo was a strong position since we could not make Victoria Dock stack up as a Ward. The
only slight point of variance was on the subject of the working docks where the electoral significance is
marginal given they are not residential and which we have expressed a view they should all be in one ward
to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities, and
promote effective local government.
We were interested to discover that the Liberal Democrats, fresh from dismembering almost
every other Ward in the City except this, one of their more closely contested seats (along with Avenue
and Kingswood) also managed to support the status quo but were more than somewhat astonished at the
intellectual flexibility of their assessment underpinning this. Claims of a link between
Reckitt/Reckitts/Reckitt and Coleman/Reckitt Benckiser/RB (there is a clue in the corporate name changes
following mergers and buy‐outs) or whatever other name they may go under are slender at best. Whilst
built as an organic whole and ran as such for a long period, currently there is no known connection
14 C&U Submission, October 2016, pp. 10‐11 15 LGBCE Op. cit, June 2017, Para 61 16 LGBCE, Op. cit. Para 62 17 C&U Submission, October 2016, pp. 6; C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 10
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between the commercial concern and the housing offer of Garden Village – nor has there been for
decades. The claims around ecclesiastical parishes were a little fanciful. The Conservative Group are each
celebrants of either the Church of England or the Church of Rome yet neither of us assume that weight
should be entirely placed on the Diocesan arrangements of either faith which we believe would run the
risk of discrimination against the Faith arrangements of other denominations. It is however a matter of
material fact that the Liberal Democrat claims about the Anglican churches in this parish are a little
tenuous at best.
We note the disagreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the location of
Garden Village and refer people to the earlier comments about it being a “closely fought Ward”. The
arguments for moving Garden Village reflect the fact that, as a housing offer, it is more closely aligned to
Holderness, and in terms of Secondary School Catchment areas18 it is true that the current Drypool ward
is largely bisected along a north‐South axis by the catchment areas for Archbishop Sentamu to the east
and Malet Lambert to the west. It is also true that it is hard to argue Drypool, any more than Holderness,
leave themselves to natural boundaries – they are both, and seemingly always have been, wards that exist
more as the result of decisions taken elsewhere. However, where there is a balance to be afforded to
different factors then there is much to be said for the status quo when there is no compelling evidence of
a need for change. As we argued in October,
“Although it is hard to argue that Drypool is an organic and cohesive community, crossing two
major arterial roads and incorporating two “villages” at the north and south of the ward
connected by disparate housing it proved impossible to create even a single member ward for
Victoria Dock. We therefore propose that the Ward be left alone as the unifying effects of the
last boundary change have set up a new form of community identity.”19
We recognise that the segmentation for this ward is a major issue. Demographically the
communities were linked more closely in Garden Village to housing in parts of Holderness than anywhere
in Drypool apart from Victoria Dock. Nevertheless, because Garden Village is an anomalous housing
offer20 we consider that the very anomalous nature of the Garden Village housing offer means it can go
into either Ward and not sit wholly harmoniously – segmentation is indeed about tenure, income, and
other “census‐measured” factors but it is also about a sense of self‐identification. Because we feel Garden
Village see themselves as an entity rather than part of a whole we think the status quo is best served here.
Accordingly we support the LGBCE’s proposals that have brought them to our initial position – but
we most assuredly do not accept the Liberal‐Democrats’ interesting representation of the situation that
got them there, preferring our much more candid assessment that Drypool is an artificial Ward but that
18 East Hull has retained Secondary school catchment areas whereas West of the River there is only Sirius North. See photo at Appendix 1 19 C&U Submission, October 2016, pp. 10 20 The Garden Village movement built atypical sized houses and gardens for Cities and were a special kind of housing offer rarely seen, at the time and location they were built. They therefore often lend weight to the feel of being a Village simply by how they look when taken in context with the surrounding area.
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since it is a ward that has become a community more by dint of association over recent decades and
therefore promote[s] effective local government.
KINGSWOOD This area triggered off the Boundary review as a result of the previous Boundary Commission not
accepting our assurances that it would be built and the then population dip would be reversed. At the outset, we make clear that we recognise the other two political Groups on the council have enormous investiture in this area since they represent the Ward, currently, but at the less partisan level it is also true that there are many different ways of looking at this problem. From the outset, we have stuck to our view expressed at the time of the previous Boundary Commission that as soon as Kingswood reached a critical mass we should “return” the “borrowed” communities of Sutton Park and elsewhere to their original electoral representation – and the community they so self‐evidently belonged to.
In our initial proposals we said, “It is clear that Kingswood is being built as a community and this is recognised in the City Plan
and the Kingswood AAP. We would have preferred to have just made it a ward on its own
using A, B,C, and the northern element of D but the numbers do not stack up and the
consequential “knock on” is too vexing for the guidelines. We therefore do what makes
sense for Kingswood and balance the numbers more readily by using part of BHWB and A”21
We balanced this with a single‐member Ward for Bransholme West. With single‐member Wards
being rejected (and how much easier would it be to establish both to ensure each councillor represents
approximately the same number of voters , and ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests
and identities of local communities to thereby promote effective local government if we did have
multiple single‐member Wards based on the LGBCE desired figure of 3254?)
We were the first to acknowledge the importance of the Kingswood Area Action Plan but, as we
said when representatives from the Liberal Democrats rushed out of a meeting when we brought this up
to actually find a copy, that is merely a planning document for Town Planning purposes it is not necessarily
a statement of community policy or awareness since alas planning law does not often place great weight
on non‐planning considerations.
We therefore welcomed the LGBCE’s pragmatic flexibility in abandoning their unworkable belief
in the universality of three‐member wards when they cut the Gordian knot and announced a two‐member
ward, welcoming it in these words,
“The flexibility inherent in not tying to a straight‐jacket of “three member only”, and
placing a weighting on community, means we agree that keeping this a two member
ward is a stronger proposal than again making the Kingswood Ward less of a
Kingswood Community through grafting on extra communities to once again “make
21 C&U Submission, October 2016, pp. 9
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up the numbers”. It was necessary when the Estate was newer and less built up ‐ it is
not necessary now and avoids diluting other communities nearby.” 22
We are, therefore, somewhat surprised and dismayed, that the LGBCE seem to have reversed
their initial proposals here and grafted onto the Kingswood community a very significant portion of the
BHWB box. Not only does this box have little in common with Kingswood community, putting so much in
Kingswood divorces it from the Bransholme community. Whilst we did do that in our initial submission23
we were at least candid and admitted we did so only to balance the numbers and we implicitly recognised
our proposals did not fully ensure the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local
communities. However, we were all working to the most absolute and formulaic interpretation of the
guidance issued, and it was with considerable relief that we recognised the LGBCE had abandoned
methodological supremacy in favour of humanity, and indeed all three clauses of their guiding triptych.
The eminent pragmatism of the LGBCE on this most thorny of issues, the Kingswood problem
being the linear successor to the Schleswig‐Holstein Question, was such that we took the somewhat
unusual step in the current fraught partisan climate in the Council of agreeing a joint submission to the
LGBCE supporting their modified proposals.
We do not, and can not, accept the southern boundary proposals now that the numbers game is
less of an absolute. The introduction of varying member wards means there is no requirement to make
Kingswood a three‐member Ward just for that reason, and the artificial inclusion of a community with
little in common to the rest can not reflect the interests and identities of local communities. BHWB
Polling box largely contains the once controversial Riverside Housing Association – a Housing Association
formed out of Council Housing stock on Bransholme. In neither the council house format or a Housing
Association does the tenure match with Kingswood. In fact, it could be regarded as socially divisive to
take people away from an area they have been part of for some fifty years and we are a little perplexed
why the LGBCE would consider breaking up the Bransholme community once the all‐powerful sway of “its
all about the wards being three‐member” has been abandoned? There is no inherent merit in taking
members of an old and well‐established community and saying to them they must henceforth see
themselves as part of something that was not there for most of the time they have been in their
community.
There is also a darker problem with moving significant portions of BHWB into a Ward dominated
by Kingswood. There is some debate if Bricknell or Kingswood is the most affluent Ward in the City24 but
nobody is suggesting that the residents of the BHBW area are in the upper end of Hull. Whilst it may be
desirable for Local Government funding to work around “super output areas” or any other fashionable
concept, it is an accepted truth that wards supply greater transparency, visibility, and above all
comprehension, as administrative areas shaping financial delivery. Even in Bricknell ward there are
22 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 6 23 C&U Submission, October 2016, pp. 9 24 This is something of a relative concept. When we discovered the Local Government Civil Servants had compiled a list of the wealthiest Wards in the country, before the affluent part of Kings Park was built, Bricknell was undoubtedly the wealthiest in the city – even then it was not in the top half of the national list.
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pockets of deprivation25 and we can attest to the fights to persuade people of this and direct action
towards a resolution. Well BHWB may be too big to not be aware of but the global amount of funding
directed towards the proposed new Kingswood Ward could, and probably would, be materially reduced
which is not conducive to promote effective local government, and also, even if effective and not too
costly schemes are found to vary local funding arrangements, is hardly a way to ensure that the pattern
of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities.
The sudden return of Wawne Road as a boundary is also confusing as is the permeability of Bude
Road/John Newton Way. In January the LGBCE suggested that Bude Road/John Newton Way was “..a
strong boundary between communities that we are reluctant to cross.” 26 and given the absence of
effective pavements for much of the length east/west and only two pedestrian crossings (1.52 miles apart
from each other) permit aided north/south pedestrian movements, it is hard to see why “reluctance”
became “proposed action”.
Wawne Road itself is anything but a barrier whatever the Liberal Democrats may claim since it is
a matter of record that Broadacre Primary school serves part of Kingswood and at least some Kingswood
residents use the Lemon Tree Children’s Centre as well27.
We therefore absolutely disagree with the LGBCE proposals for this Ward. The proponents of this
idea do not seem to have offered incontrovertible data to support this concept – indeed it is a source of
much frustration that too much of this exercise has been based on assertion rather than proffering
evidence – and that, sometimes, when evidence has been proffered it has been disregarded (as we will
demonstrate in much greater depth in our section on Bricknell Ward). We consider that the LGBCE had
supplied a fair compromise in their January proposals and we support that.
25 This will depend what accounting unit is used but, at its most rudimentary, any individual can be in straightened circumstances or poor relative to someone else. 26 LGBCE, “New Electoral Arrangements for Hull City Council”, January 2017, Para 41 27 Alas the information about the Lemon Tree Children’s Centre is personal knowledge from friends in the area and we cannot affirm it with incontrovertible published facts.
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WEST HULL
PICKERING Although not mentioned in the LGBCE commentary (whilst delighted that West Hull and Hessle
Conservative Association were) we did support the LGBCE proposals from January 2017 in our reply of March 2016.28 We therefore see no reason to alter our view from then as the LGBCE proposals remain unaltered.
We continue to support the LGBCE proposals.
BOOTHFERRY There is little comment on this Ward, a passing reference in a single paragraph,29 but we also note
that we broadly supported the LGBCE in our response to their January proposals.30 We did note however that we had some concerns with the lower half of the eastern boundary
and suggested the ward boundary should follow the boundary of the recreation ground rather than isolate Parkfield Drive and disconnect it from Alliance Avenue and the community ‐ engendered by many things not least the refuse collection route which clearly sees the properties as identical community! This would have resulted in the boundary moving a few yards to the west a relatively minor change of 165 properties, and 205 voters that would have kept a community together and made little difference to the figures.
We were listened to about the linkage between Parkfield and Alliance. Paradoxically however,
with the current proposals moving the boundary line of the now‐linked Parkfield and Alliance to the east,
the community under the current proposals would be split on a new line at De La Pole Avenue when it
had hitherto been accepted as an entire community. The LGBCE offer no reason for the movement into
Boothferry of both these streets, nor the reason why De La Pole Avenue is the new point for splitting this
community. Nor is it entirely clear why a very small part of De La Pole Avenue which conjoins Curzon
Street ends up in the proposed Myton Ward at the “Myton Carbuncle” when the overwhelming rest of De
La Pole Avenue is in the proposed Boothferry Ward. The splitting of De La Pole Avenue clearly fails to
ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities or, by
separating a clear community of interest to promote effective local government.
We can only assume these proposals are governed by the need to make numbers balance and
suggest that this is a problem with the tyranny of numbers when they seem to take a greater weight in
28 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 20 29 LGBCE Op. cit, June 2017, Para 78 30 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 19 ‐ 20
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counsels than communities. With Boothferry Ward being largely a dormitory ward mainly made up of
residential housing from different, generally, inter‐war builds it is really hard to see how the Gipsyville
area (or worse, a part of it) even fits in to this Ward more than the community it leaves behind.
It seems clear to us there is a reasonable consensus around Boothferry, or at least the LGBCE
January 2017 proposals and the dissent is about a small area around Alliance Avenue or a street either
way. Should it help we would be prepared to agree in full the LGBCE proposals of January which, whilst
unfortunate for the Parkfield Drive residents, would be less disastrous than separating the Newington
community although we still think our modest counter‐proposal was the best solution.
AVENUE
Initially we were pleased there were “…very similar proposals for a three‐member Avenue ward
from the three political groups”31 not so much because Avenue Ward is inviolate but because it is a finely
balanced political ward and the purpose of a Boundary review should not be to negate the ballot box. It
seems to us there is still a broad consensus around here with some room for tidying up in the parts of the
current ward which are palpably atypical and just tagged on.
However, we cannot support in their entirety the LGBCE proposals for the new Avenue Ward.
Whilst our initial proposal in our first submission was to fully support the status quo and that was later
modified to particularly concentrate on the Margaret Street area, an arguably anomalous area of Avenue
Ward, the LGBCE proposal seems more than somewhat flawed in making radical changes for addressing
the Avenue problem in the south of the ward rather than the south‐east. To address the issue about
anomalous properties suggests as well that a view needs to be taken about the former Hull and Barnsley
overhead railway line, punctuated as it is at key points by bridges above street level for the trains. Within
the Avenue/Newland current wards the housing offer is barely impacted on in the Princes Road area, for
example, whichever side of the bridge is considered. The Overhead Railway line is not as an effective
barrier as it may seem, it very much depends on what part is considered.
Murrayfield Road, just to the North of the Overhead railway line where it forms a barrier between
Avenue and Bricknell, has clearly not been seen as impermeable because Murrayfield was in Avenue Ward
before the 1983 boundary changes put it in the then‐Newland, and now Bricknell Ward. Indeed, Bricknell
Ward as a residential unit of Hull would not have existed had the then Hull Corporation not paid the
London and North Eastern Railway company very handsomely to pierce the embankment allowing access
to land newly acquired. Right from the outset at the new expansion area there was the road width (and
depth since the Corporation also dug down to provide enough height for tramcar provision) for a generous
road as well as generous pavements.
On the other hand the legendarily mean pavements and the definite pinch‐point on Newland
Avenue between Ella Street in Avenue Ward and Reynoldson Street in Newland Ward
31 LGBCE, Op. Cit., January 2017, Para 58
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are far from making it impossible or difficult to access the shops and cafes on Newland Avenue.
Nevertheless, that railway line at that point has been seen as inviolate and impenetrable as are the next
two bridges on Chestnut Road and Princes Road where, like Newland Avenue, a small stub of the street is
south of the railway line with the bulk of it being north,32 with no obvious barrier at ground level. There is
time for a discussion on the Overhead Railway line, with the strategically placed bridges and
pavements/roads regularly puncturing it, if not this Review then certainly the next one. The old maxim
about railway lines being usually seen as community dividers is generally a good one, but when it is
inconsistently applied as it has been in the small stretch of railway line between Chanterlands Avenue and
Newland Avenue and, when some of the streets that pass through the railway line were clearly built as
one street, then questions need to be asked about assumptions.
We welcome the fact the LGBCE have responded to our suggestions in the March submission
about the area around Margaret Street and have, sagaciously, undone the weak compromises in the area.
The Margaret Street area comprises a community by tenure and demographic, living in houses built at a
similar period, which have been rather bizarrely separated into two wards for many years (see Figure 1)
and resolves the anomaly by putting them all in one Ward.
32 See Fig.1
Figure 1– Margaret Road Area, map of Avenue/Myton
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We were also delighted that our view the Margaret Street community still all belonged in Avenue,
an idea we proposed not just Labour as mentioned in para 87,33 was accepted and the residents, under
the LGBCE proposals, join Avenue Ward. To an extent, when we proposed this in March 2017,34 it was a
judgement call whether the entire community was in Avenue Ward or in Myton Ward (see Figure 3.)
However, what is clear to us is that the residential bloc should indeed be treated as a community.
In fact, we feel that the boundary line for this community should follow the former railway line,
as shewn in Figure 3 with the yellow line, and continue to reflect the phases of development. If it is
decided that the whole community should be in Myton, then the Wellington Lane dividing line proposed
by the LGBCE, should be deleted if the greatest weight is placed on segmentation and community of
interest. The proposal to put this bloc in Myton Ward would end what seems like a drafting error from an
earlier submission, one in which all three Groups managed to come to a consensus so we all probably bear
some of the blame too, and where both Dover and Berkley Street are in Avenue Ward but they can only
be accessed from Myton Ward. This peculiarity of access suggests again that the streets were built to
approach and use the City Centre since the other end of the street was a railway line on the other side of
which was the Pearson Park inspired Mercantile housing part of the 0000Victorian expansion. Otherwise
we welcome the modifications so long as the Margaret Street area is treated as a whole, and would not
strenuously oppose the whole community being in either ward if we have achieved our aim to ensure that
the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities and thereby promote
effective local government.
33 LGBCE, Op. Cit., June 2017, Para 87 34 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 39
Figure 2– Margaret Road Area Customer Segmentation Data
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We do however fear the LGBCE may have taken a little too literally the initial Liberal Democrat
proposals about the current southern boundary of Avenue Ward. Initially, the proposed small alterations
by the Liberal Democrats referred to two minor adjustments on which we took no especial view about
the “… handful of addresses...” 35 at the southern end of Princes Avenue because they were remarkably
imprecise and gave no hint, let alone factual basis, of how many people were involved. The junction at
Princes Avenue/Spring Bank/Spring Bank West may well be three legged but there is not a right angle to
be found at any of the junctions so we are not clear which addresses are caught up in which lines here.
Although the enclave around Hymers College is indeed somewhat geographically isolated from
the residential parts of the rest of Avenue Ward they are also not a happy fit with the current Myton. The
Botanic Sidings junction, nowadays the area where Spring Bank/Princes Avenue/Spring Bank West
coalesce and the land is mainly occupied by Jackson’s bakery and the (not so) Old Zoological Pub, has
always served to divide rather than link communities. If a place has no natural connection it is surely
imperative to consider how they see themselves as well as how the Council and other bodies have dealt
with the problem? We have always been clear that the local residents identify with the Avenues – there
is certainly a Neighbourhood Watch group that unites them; and the State has certainly included this area
35 Liberal Democrat Submission, March 2017, pp. 13
Figure 3 – Avenue/Myton Boundary if
following the railway line
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in the Thoresby Street Primary School catchment area. Hymers and Sunnybank in particular, less so Spring
Bank West itself, all have more in common with the Avenues per se than Myton Ward, when tenure, and
other segmentation factors are assessed, as are demonstrated by the customer segmentation data in
Figure 4 below.
It is therefore hard to see why the north‐east area of Avenue Ward (Queens Road/Chestnut Road,
Princes Road area), with mainly more modest housing closer in detail to the current Newland Ward; or
the south‐east part of Avenue Ward (Margaret Street area) with its closer identification to the Myton
Ward demographics, should remain in Avenue Ward and an area that has demographic commonality
should be proposed for amputation. If Avenue Ward should be altered, and increasingly the evidence
suggests it should be, then the area(s) in Avenue Ward that are closer to Newland and Myton
demographically and architecturally, such as Princes Road area and Margaret Street area (a wholly
random line on a map see Figures 5 and 3 respectively) should be considered first as they have atypical
for Avenue demographics but also, unlike Sunnybank area, have an obvious place they can be relocated
to. As we have already evidenced the Margaret Street area we will not present further evidence here, but
see Figure 5 overleaf for the boundaries at the north of Avenue ward around the Princes Road area.
Figure 4 – Customer Segmentation Data of the current wards,
with the red line representing the proposed shift of the
Sunnybank/Hymers area into Myton ward.
Sunnybank/
Hymers area
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Reluctantly therefore we have to say we disagree with this proposal whilst recognising, and
welcoming, the fact that the LGBCE recognise two of the affected blocs are indeed a whole and entering
in a build and challenge of our own for a third as part of the debate about the overhead railway.
MYTON
We are excited by the radical proposals for Myton which represent an excellent attempt to sort
out what is always a problem for any City Centre. However, the proposals stumble a little in some of the
detail which we can perhaps best illustrate as well in Figure 6 overleaf:
Figure 5, Avenue and Newland
boundaries.
Where the red crosses
represent bridges built as part
of the overhead railway line and
the street was built as an entity.
The orange cross represents a
bridge over the road but the
Maple Street housing truncates
in that area. The thick yellow
line encloses an area of Avenue
Ward which is demographically,
and architecturally, more similar
to Newland Ward and always
has been. The thin yellow line
illustrates the extant and
proposed boundary line which
we feel to be historically archaic
and more of a division than the
actual railway line is.
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There seems to us nothing inherently wrong with the fact that the private land is an obstacle one
way and the railway lines are a physical deterrent on the ground and passable in only a few places because
that is so wherever the ward boundaries are put on a map – people from Walton Street can still only get
to the City Centre from Spring Bank West or Anlaby Road whether they live in Newington or Myton and
equally the residents of Sunnybank will mainly access the City Centre from Spring Bank West whether they
are in Avenue Ward or Myton, we are just inherently uncomfortable with the idea of such a community
disconnect from the rest of the proposed Myton. A park with two railway lines as sides does not seem to
us to be a natural community cohesion park, and the connection between the Stadium and the park is
becoming a matter of some controversy the LGBCE may not be aware of. The footbridge that connects
the two areas has currently been closed, by the Stadium operators36 under the inevitable “terrorism”
excuse. There is some dispute over whether closing the footbridge needs planning permission or not, but
there seems little doubt the footbridge connection too is private property and all the connections in this
area seem to make the few streets currently in Newington more connected with Newington itself than
Myton. The connections are simply too tenuous we think, and there seems little to commend taking a
view that De La Pole Avenue and Albert Avenue are not part of the same community when that land was
always in the parish of Newington before Hull swallowed that up and developed it in a similar timeframe.
36 Although the Council own the Stadium it is run by a private management company and it is probably true to say the deal between the two was more favourable to the Stadium Management Company than it was to the Council.
The thin blue line represents the railway line to Scarborough which is “at grade”
and still a working railway line.
The bright green line represents the railway line to the Inter‐City network
which is also “at grade” and still a
working railway line.
The red arrow is where the railway lines merge and enter Hull paragon Station
The dark green line represents the last of the reversing triangle which was a cheap
alternative to a turntable and is also “at
grade” though with the arrival of fixed
car units it is not clear to us if it is still in
use.
The green dots are representative of the fact there used to be two occupied
railway‐worker cottages but they may
well have gone by now.
The yellow enclosed area represents privately owned land across which no
right of way exists and on some
boundaries is securely fenced off Figure 6 – Diagram of the railway lines in the
proposed Myton Ward
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An officer drew our attention to the fact we had not mentioned the BME and EAL communities
explicitly and the legal challenge that may ensue. We will record our view that is a factor which would
benefit from a more tightly drawn Myton Ward and allow a greater focus on meeting legal obligations in
a transparent and focused way and help the council avoid suggestions that have, in the past and
elsewhere, been levelled at the police.
We fully accept that the Parkfield Drive boundary would lead to too great a variance on Myton’s
figures and welcome the reassurance that it was looked at. Because of decisions taken elsewhere in Myton
Ward that number is too high, but that it is a better boundary is also indisputable so the solution lies in
other parts of Myton. With the greatest respect, it seems to us the LGBCE are, again, relying too much on
numbers (see para 85 especially37) as if they were fiat. The numbers are best guesses, chronic voter under‐
representation in some communities is still a known national issue, the huge influx of eastern European
labour is still largely unmeasured, and paradoxically around the University voter‐representation is
massively over‐stated with some people appearing on the voting register several times should they be the
conscientious type and register wherever they move. The student addition to the register is an easy matter,
there is not a correspondingly immediate removal from the old address – for registration is guaranteed
but removal has no immediate process. Indeed, so unscientific is the science here that the recent
announcement by the University that, to all intents and purposes it is bringing its owned accommodation
onto the campus rather than stay in Cottingham has not yet been factored into population estimates.
Planning Committee were told the plans to relocate the Halls would mean about 2,000 more people in
University Ward, who will be registered as well, which is a significant increase in a two‐member ward and
on the voter per councillor ratio that cannot have been factored in because it has only recently been
announced. Numbers lie, community does not in this exercise and we suggest Myton is another Ward that
would benefit from weight on the community test and less belief the figures are sacrosanct. Nor do we
agree that election by thirds leads “to a presumption in favour of three‐councillor wards”,38there was no
such presumption at the last Boundary review (even if we accept the number of councillors was not
divisible by three anyway) and the “science” behind how many councillors we need now is rather
questionable at best – it really cannot be said that any council can categorically state that 56‐59 range is
so precise a measurement of “how many councillors are needed to administer the council”. The insistence
on numbers at all costs is making a rod for all our backs, a rod that is not needed since the principle of all
three‐member wards has been discarded and cannot be replaced by a presumption that is not shared
currency at its gestation.
NEWINGTON AND ST ANDREWS We welcome the fact the LGBCE “…also note that our revised Newington & St Andrews ward
reunites the Hessle Road area”39 which we consider to be important40 and also the S222 Anti‐prostitution
37 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017 (Para 85 in particular) 38 Ibid. 39 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 88 40 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 38
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order is also contained within the LGBCE proposals41 which we had also supported.42 We are also sympathetic to points about Rawling Way, arguments around which can cut two ways as we have discovered in some of our initial line‐drawing.
However, we are not entirely comfortable with elements of the LGBCE proposals in this area. The
chance to put the western working docks all in one ward to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities and promote effective local government seems to have been missed. We supplied a number neutral series of lines on the map to cover this point in our last submission. Given the numbers involved as residents of this area are currently low it seems a pity not to adopt our proposals to ensure greater focus on dock interests. However, it is worth noting that numbers again could be wrong with talk of more Halls of residence at the former Lord Line part of St Andrew’s quay and for which planning permission exists.43
We think some of the boundaries are a little less sure‐footed than in other parts of the city (please
see our comments on the proposed boundary with Boothferry under that section) and feel that the historic link between the Newington and Gipsyville areas is broken a little too often. The Newington parish existed outside Hull for many years but as fishing took off and began to dominate this part of the city links were forged which have some historic and sentimental weight even if less‐evidenced by volumes of trawlers and the Birds Eye processing plant.
Qualified support, we see the steps towards embracing certain community features and
think the LGBCE are wise to do so but we still think some tinkering is needed to meet the need to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities and promote effective local government.
ORCHARD PARK
We clearly continue to agree with the LGBCE proposals that the Northern and the Western
boundaries of Orchard Park should be the current City Boundary. The Southern boundary, which has
varied more over the years, we again indicate our broad agreement subject to any minor variations that
may ensure the best opportunity for ensuring each councillor represents approximately the same
number of voters.
However, we continue to significantly part company with the proposal to include part of BEVD
within Orchard Park. Whilst we argued that there was some community diversity in University Ward and
41 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 88 42 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 19 43 Allusion to it is made here: http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull‐east‐yorkshire‐news/plans‐submitted‐demolish‐lord‐line‐116593 accessed 12 viii 2017, 19:47. However, we are aware that a planning permission is not necessarily a firm piece of evidence that something will happen and honesty compels us to say there is an element of controversy about the delivery rate of the developer. If done however the figures will again be out significantly, but we are not that sanguine it will happen.
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that was acceptable we also pointed out “and it is hard to see they can calibrate towards any other area
given the nature of the external boundaries. For that reason we, atypically, recognise that segmentation
may not matter – there being, to the best of our knowledge and belief, nobody now alive who has known
any other arrangement for that area and so they by default may be deemed to accept the nature of the
existing consensus”. The Queensway area has been in Orchard Park Ward (OP7 forming the entirety of it)
and in Beverley Ward (part of BEVD) with residents who can remember being in both. There is an
alternative, it has been recognised by the Boundary Commission, and the pattern of wards reflects the
interests and identities of local communities as well as helps to promote effective local government. On
this matter, we part company with both the other Groups in support of our long‐held view that the test
of community is important, and in any event this one community has been sacrificed on the altar of
electoral expedience to justify throwing up all cards in the air to create other Wards that form a
“community”. We struggle to see that the community of interest between the good citizens of Waterloo
Street and Capstan Road (as per our later and fuller critique in the Beverley and Sculcoates section) is any
greater than the community of interest between the good citizens of the Queensway and Capstan Road.
Whilst BEVD, that part west of Beverley Road, undoubtedly forms an island between the North‐
South running Beverley & Barmston Drain and the North‐ South running Beverley Road and so does not
geographically sit easily with the nearest population to its west or its east it is a community in and of itself.
To resolve the sense of where the BEVD “island” belongs suggests a close look at the demographics of the
communities to either side of this community and it is clear they are united demographically and by census
measurements with the residents to their east. Physically the largely car‐driving community of the
western part of BEVD access two roads onto Beverley Road whereupon they can access five roads in
Beverley Ward north of Sutton Road. Turning to the west, BEVD residents in that island can cross the
Barmston Drain at only one place, even the urban geography makes, or serves, or reflects, the sense of
community.
The last Boundary Review was the first to address the problem of what was then OP7 and is now
the half of BEVD to the West of Beverley Road. That the then OP7 had become an issue was because of
what were then newly built private houses in the area. The Boundary Commissioners in the previous
Capstan
Road Area
The
Queensway
Area
Figure 7 – Customer Segmentation Data of the current
Beverley and Orchard Park and Greenwood wards.
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review accepted the arguments of the Labour‐controlled City Council, the Conservative Group and the
then‐extant Hull Independent Labour Group, that OP7 should go to Beverley Ward. It is a bit perplexing
that the defining test of the sense of belonging should be reversed at the first available opportunity and
not because of any overwhelming, or even extant, demand from the citizens concerned.
Indeed the customer segmentation map in Figure 7 on the previous page clearly shews that the
nearest collection of “Group F: Older Couples in Semis” is the other half of BEVD on the eastern side of
Beverley Road.
Therefore we have broad sympathy with the LGBCE proposals but continue to assert that BEVD
should remain united on segmentation figures within Beverley Ward. We do think there is an element of
straining at gnats here on the numbers as well Beverley Ward variance with all of BEVD is negligible – 205
voters IF the predictions are right. The hours of work and thousands of pounds expended on sorting this
problem out for such a small amount that is not guaranteed is hardly what the public expect their tax
pound to be spent on however noble Parliament’s intention. If our radical proposal, slightly tongue in
cheek though it may be, for solving the three wards of Beverley, Orchard Park, and University which keeps
them within their current boundaries is not acceptable then the numbers slice a different way too.
In a SPECIFIC COUNTER‐PROPOSAL : If a 3 member ward can vary from as little as 8,841 – 10,803
with the ideal total being 9,822, and for a two member ward it is 5,894 – 7,202 with ideal of 6,548, then
keeping Beverley Ward intact as a two‐member ward, leaves University Ward a two‐member ward by 806
and Orchard Park Ward too small by 1,840. If the LGBCE, in their January proposals, were prepared to
accept a slight wait for the population of Kingswood to “catch up” on believable growth figures there is
surely no reason they could not do the same for the University’s equally believable growth figures. An
extra student intake and a revisiting of the historically malleable boundary between Orchard Park and
University Ward along 5th Avenue, 21st Avenue, Endyke Lane, or any parts thereto to balance the numbers
would be no more injurious to the current community that splitting Ada Holmes Circle in half as is currently
proposed. This modest scheme, stretching the envelope in the short term but a very short ‐term at the
speed the University builds, will avoid the need for the unloved Beverley and Sculcoates Ward and result
in less unnecessary and in some ways contrived disruption44 to the settled communities around the area
by creating a ward with no basis built around the evidence (which comes later in this submission)
UNIVERSITY
There has been a remarkable consensus and consistency around this ward, largely a part of
compelling urban geography (the nature of Cottingham Road, and the perceived nature of Beverley Road
at this point) as well as prolonged political reality (the City Boundary with ERYC) and where the only
malleable point has been the east/west axis between University and OPE – which over the decades has
44 Our view for this being the cynical jettisoning of half of BEVD, a proven pattern of wards [that] reflects the
interests and identities of local communities and did promote effective local government by one political party
and which relies on tenuous claims of harmony in the new proposals
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been a matter of a few hundred yards north or south in communities with a broadly similar demographic
at that point.
Whilst there are indeed segmentation pockets of a different nature from the majority of the Ward
these have largely been part of the same Ward since they were built and it is hard to see that they can
calibrate towards any other area given the nature of the external boundaries. For that reason we,
atypically, recognise that segmentation may not matter – there being, to the best of our knowledge and
belief, nobody now alive who has known any other arrangement for that area and so they by default may
be deemed to accept the nature of the existing consensus.
The LGBCE comment that “None of the submissions we received proposed that University should
be changed from a two‐ to a three‐councillor ward”45 and that comment is accurate but cannot be allowed
to go unchallenged. No “compelling argument”, to use the phrase of the LGBCE, has at any time been
offered for why University should be a two‐member ward. In fact, we are not sure an argument has been
made at all on this point – everyone has looked at the affairs on the ground and concluded that it is the
only way to satisfy the community and the good governance test. However, we could just as easily, and
in an internal early iteration did, make Orchard Park Ward a two‐member ward and University a three
member – it is all about that malleable northern boundary of University Ward and southern boundary of
Orchard Park. The fact remains that the only reasons for accepting that one or other of the two wards,
Orchard Park and University, should be two members are a combination of the numbers, geographical
features, and the three criteria avowed by the LGBCE. We could have made both these Wards three‐
member Wards by major and wholesale crossing of two roads, and a shotgun wedding between un‐related
communities as has been proposed elsewhere in assorted suggestions during this process46 but no effort
has been made to do so. If we are to readily accept that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and
identities of local communities and to promote effective local government are not paris‐passu with the
numbers are then we really do have to ask why and who has decided this. If the numbers per councillor
have been met by dividing the city population by the number of councillors desired then surely the test is
to make communities that match as closely to the numbers as possible and not place the greatest weight
on drawing lines by numbers first.
Indeed, reliance on the figures round here proves the risk of doing that. Long after the
population projections the University announced it was, and indeed has now completed, some 600 new
bedroom offers on campus. The University is currently out to tender following a recent announcement47
that Halls were to be extensively built on the campus, some 1,462 more souls, so there are already some
two thousand more are expected before the next boundary. Let us just take a moment to consider that:
some 2,000 more students/voters (and the University does enrol in its own accommodation) are going
to be on the University Ward register within two years of its implementation date. 2000 people is some
2/3rds of the average number of people each councillor is supposed to represent – almost enough for
45 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 19 46 Most memorably, the Liberal Democrats attempt to destroy Bricknell Ward by merging it into two different wards both spanning Cottingham Road, or indeed the LGBCE unwilling to cross Beverley Road in this area but happy to do so for two different wards south of Cottingham/Clough Road – one of which also features a shotgun‐wedding par excellence ‐ Bricknell. 47 See: http://universitybusiness.co.uk/Article/130m‐new‐student‐residences‐given‐go‐ahead‐at‐hull‐uni accessed 8 viii 2017, 12:13
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an extra councillor. The number “science” is wrong before we even complete this exercise and too
much weight cannot be placed on it.
We therefore can support the current proposals in the same terms as we did last time48 where we
accepted the potential for a malleable northern boundary and would neither propose it nor oppose it.
However, we most emphatically do not endorse University Ward as an inviolate two‐member ward and
we recognise that whilst the LGBCE say the bar must be set high for the justification of having a two‐
member ward it has not been set at all here. There simply has been no effective setting of a bar, it has
worked on a tacit assumption that geography and numbers over‐ride everything else which may well be a
sustainable view but is seemingly not consistently applied elsewhere. Therefore, University Ward, which
seems to have tacitly been accepted as a two‐member ward, and by the strange logic of the Liberal
Democrats is not regarded as part of the University community despite having more students in it than
Bricknell, has supplied little justification for that. We could as easily have made it a two‐member ward
and if numbers are all that matters then we can accept that Northern Area has been a viable administrative
entity for several decades – the population projections are 22,645 in this area which if we take the LGBCE
proposals for 3,274 voters per councillor means a nice and tidy 6.1 councillors are all that is needed in the
block between the City Boundary and Cottingham Road/Clough Road going north‐south; and the City
boundary to the River Hull on the east‐west access.. We could profess to believe the Liberal Democrats
and create a proper University Ward by merging the campus with the students of University Ward with
the students in the southern part of the current Beverley Ward. Pick a line that splits the population of this
building block in two across a line east‐west and establish that everything else is a residential community
and Bob’s your Uncle: two residential wards, one predominantly not students, the other less so, and two
three‐member wards. Otherwise there is a specific proposal for this area in the Orchard Park section.
BEVERLEY AND SCULCOATES WARD
The idea that Beverley Road is a unified and cohesive residential whole continues to defy belief.
In a flat City Beverley Road is one of the few, broadly straight, roads that a person of moderately gifted
eyesight cannot see from one end to the other (it is even possible to do so on Cottingham Road, one of
the longest east‐west straight roads in the City). Beverley Road is one of only six roads that stretch from
any reasonable definition of the City Centre to the City boundary with no name change49. Of those six
roads it is Beverley Road alone that is proposed to be only crossed by one ward – and that right at the City
Centre. For some reason Beverley Road has become seen as the only one of the six main thoroughfares
that it is not considered possible to cross outside the City centre ward even though at the moment it has
Myton, Newland, and Beverley spanning it. By contrast Clive Sullivan Way is spanned for its entire length
encompassing the LGBCE proposals for Pickering, Newington, and Myton; Hessle Road is spanned by
Pickering, Newington, and Myton, for its entire length; and Anlaby Road is spanned by Pickering,
Newington, and Myton with only a small section just west of the Hull Royal Infirmary not being spanned.
48 C&U Submission, March 2017, pp. 15 49 Going clockwise: Clive Sullivan Way, which largely duplicates and replaces Hessle Road as a vehicular route; Anlaby Road, all lead to the west; Beverley Road itself, the only route to the North; Holderness Road; Hedon Road to the east.
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To the east of the City, Holderness Road is spanned by Ings Ward, Longhill Ward and Drypool Ward, only
forming a barrier between Holderness and Southcoates Wards; and Hedon Road is spanned for the entire
length along Myton Ward, Drypool Ward, and Marfleet Ward. It simply is not credible for anyone to argue
that Beverley Road is a linear construct and is comprehensible as a “tale of two halves east and west like
some form of superannuated Berlin Wall waiting only to be crossed at Checkpoint Myton”.
Indeed the Council, whilst rightly recognising Beverley Road is an important part of the
development of Hull, accepts that in fact the development was in a form or series of arcs steadily
progressing northwards but not necessarily in a series of steps. The character appraisal for Beverley Road
Conservation Area clearly states:‐
The Conservation Area can be divided into 4 character areas which are, south to north:
• The ‘City Centre Approach’ area, characterised by early houses with classical
details and front gardens, later shops and business uses associated with the
location near the city centre and on a main road, and some attractive mature
trees.
• The ‘Stepney Village’ area, characterised by built frontages close to the back of
pavement which narrow the vista, and small simple shop buildings.
• The ‘Park and Queens Road’ area, characterised by large houses, some good public
buildings and an avenue of mature trees.
• The ‘St John’s Wood’ suburban area, characterised by shopping parades of late
Victorian and Edwardian 3‐storey buildings often with decorative gables.
That the entirety of Beverley Road is not a Conservation Area also testifies to its diversity and level
of architectural interest, as well as varied customer segmentation.
The architecture is not the only manifestation of varied communities along the length of Beverley
Road because just as the incidence of owner occupation decreases so segmentation indicates that age
decreases the closer to the City Centre – not that radical a discovery in this country. We do not wish to
suggest any architecture or age is optimum, we celebrate the diversity and plurality of life in a City, but
they perforce must have different interests and aspirations. It is thirty years since either of the Group
lived in a shared and rented house near the City Centre for example, we have both reached the age we
live in houses near parks and that reflects our contemporaries – most of whom have children living in the
areas we used to.
We recognise the sense of the Northern boundary to the proposed Beverley and Sculcoates Ward
as part of the frankly ludicrous boundary of the City at this point. That those of us living west of the river
travelling to the Kingswood retail offer from the City itself must continue to briefly leave the City before
travelling briefly east and crossing the River Hull to again return to the City is a complete nonsense.
However, we recognise this is out of your hands. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to be included in the
Parliamentary Boundary Review either reading the current proposals.
In our last response, we said that the Liberal Democrat justification for Beverley and Sculcoates
Ward was remarkably thin. Constant boilerplate assertions of “…a ward that satisfactorily represents a
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number of different communities” even if prefaced with “…the strengthening of community identities...”
does not necessarily make it so. At its most basic the current Beverley Ward is unique within Hull in not
having a single council house50 which makes it a less likely candidate to claim that linkage with Fountain
Road Estate at the City Centre, which was projected in the initial Liberal Democrat proposals supported
by the LGBCE, and is neither “…the strengthening of community identities...” or “…a ward that
satisfactorily represents a number of different communities”. Rather than merely counter assertions with
assertions we will point out that the segmentation data (demonstrated in Figure 8 over the page) for the
Fountain Road Estate suggests mixed demographics of “Diverse private renters”, “Public renting young
families”, “Economically inactive flats” and “Low income public renters” whilst the Fleet/Ghost Estate
around Mizzen Road has predominately “Affluent professionals”. We know which point of view, about
the two communities being coalesced or not, is supported by the facts and suggest that our counter‐view
is more likely to be seen as the pattern of wards [which] reflects the interests and identities of local
communities and so promote[s] effective local government in any review of the matter.
Indeed, it is not necessary to travel the full length of Beverley Road in the proposed Beverley and
Southcoates Ward to be quizzical about the ability to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the
interests and identities of local communities. Even if we currently regard Clough Road as a permeable
barrier, and the evidence suggesting it is seems thin at the residential western end of Clough Road, if more
open for discussion at the car reliant retail park eastern end, the communities to the east of Beverley Road
but immediately south and to the north of Clough Road are not especially homogenous. It is indeed,
either side of the Clough Road axis that the rented/HIMO percentage markedly increases. (See Figure 8
same as above one)
50 The current Beverley ward may have “acquired dwellings” a phrase to describe homes exchanged by a homeowner for care in a Council home, but Beverley Ward does not have a Council estate of any size whatsoever.
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Those diversities in age and income from the north to the south of Beverley Road manifest
themselves in different ways too. Just taking the polar opposite ends of the proposed Ward there are
significantly diverse attitudes and areas of interest. At the edge of the City the largely car‐driving residents
look to Kingswood for most of their leisure and retail offer (some will use the Tesco superstore just
opposite Mizzen Road in part but the nature of the stock and the ambience suggests a clear cultural
diversity) and some may well work there – which is a back‐handed reflection on the Labour Group
commentary even though we think they are probably one review too early. At the City Centre/Fountain
Road Estate end of Beverley Road the economic or life style choices for citizens there suggest that the
Figure 8 – Customer Segmentation Data for the
proposed Beverley and Sculcoates Ward
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Retail and Leisure focus is the City Centre and the Marina Dock Estate – and some may well work there
too. This is not one community facing in one direction and pulling the same way but a series of
communities facing both north and south as well as east and west along their arc of Beverley Road as well.
In January 2017 The LGBCE rightly commented, “We accept that the communities in this ward are
linked by a connection to Beverley Road but they are spread out along its length and we would be
particularly interested in the views of local residents and others in relation to this ward as part of the
consultation on our draft recommendations”51 We commented that “Our view is that Beverley &
Sculcoates Ward is too flawed and any advantages are asserted not evidenced” and that still remains our
view. It is wholly unclear to us, in the lack of any evidence that has been presented, why it is that Beverley
Road alone of all the organic five routes in and out of the City52 should be singled out for a ward to run
the length of it when they all grew organically enough that of them too it could also be said the
communities in this ward are linked by a connection to [insert name of] Road but they are spread out along
its length? This super‐elongated warding solution has been offered by nobody as a solution along Anlaby,
Holderness or Hedon Road and not even the entire length of Hessle Road where even the iconic fishing
connection is only along a part of it approximately from the Halfway Pub53 to the City Centre.
In our March submission we referred to the unusual Constitutional position that would be created
by the new Beverley and Sculcoates Ward. It may seem of little moment, Constitutions can always be
rewritten and usually are. However, Hull pioneered devolved local affairs and still retains it in enough to
be far less than what it was but it is still significant and will probably remain in some form. The creation
of a Ward co‐terminous with nine others is disproportionate to other proposals for other Wards with co‐
terminosity which, even under the revised proposals, only marginally increase to a range of 2‐5 not the 2‐
4 of the last consultation. To avoid the actions of an Area Committee, or individual Ward, impacting
detrimentally on another part of the City (even under the tightest and most universally agreed definition
of a community any community must rub up against a similar entity which may be different in goals and
aspirations) the Council’s governance arrangements designate as a Key Decision one that involves two
Wards or more.54 The existence of the proposed Beverley and Sculcoates Ward, abutting onto nine other
Wards, would mean three Councillors having considerable sway over the affairs of ten wards – or half the
City including, it may be added, those across the River Hull. As an Opposition Group that would make
Beverley and Sculcoates very tempting as an electoral target and if we couldn’t push the boundaries and
barriers in the pursuit of what we see as the best interests of the City there would be something wrong
with us. The rows, stretching the Constitution and everything else that could, and most probably would,
follow from three councillors having influence over half the City would give one Ward a “super majority
51 LGBCE Op. cit, June 2017, Para 50 52 For these purposes, Clive Sullivan Way is not regarded as organic being largely a Central Government transport initiative to aid dock traffic from the east to get out of the City quickly (allegedly!). All the other roads, were roads for Hull Citizens to interact with the communities nearby (and vice‐versa); hence the characteristically imaginative English names given to them: Hessle, Beverley, Anlaby, Hedon, and their developmental growth was sporadic. 53 Another imaginative English name but the clue is in the fact that even that road only is held together by the fishing connection for half its length towards Hessle. 54 The Constitution of Hull City Council. The characteristically vague legal term “significant” leads to competing and flexible interpretations but the principle does not. Although hitherto there has been greater clarity when the phrase “significant” is used and measured as a financial definition, this does not negate a potential use in the future that could be used to prevent promoting effective local government.
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lock‐out” on half the City and not be in any way a clear demonstration of how to promote effective local
government.
The Council, further to the governance point, has Area Committees where a degree of devolved
decision making is made by Wards grouped together with a certain commonality of interests.55 Beverley
& Sculcoates Ward with these boundaries leading to so many co‐terminous borders will be hard to fit in
anywhere. Not because of a shortage of neighbours that have a commonality of interest but precisely
because the increased plurality within the elongated boundary means Beverley and Sculcoates has so
much demographic plurality that it is of all the City and none of it.
However to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local
communities does not suggest a Ward that is 3.2 miles long56 in a City which at that point on the
North/South axis is 4.1 miles57 will be promoting effective local government. What took over 600 years
to evolve58 in a steady and organic bottom way up and has been done by steady evolution and multiple
units of internal administrations (as either wards, parishes, or indeed communities that co‐existed outside
the City itself), can suddenly be set aside by a stroke of the keyboard based on no positive information
other than the vague assertions it will be: “…the strengthening of community identities...” or “…a ward
that satisfactorily represents a number of different communities”? The evidence base for the proposals
made by the Liberal Democrats are to make a mockery of the principles of sound decision making in public
life that Lord Nolan laid down, specifically:‐
Objectivity – Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit,
using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.
Openness – Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent
manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful
reasons for so doing.
Accountability – Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and
actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.59
It seems clear to us that whilst the Liberal Democrats offered no evidence other than lines on a
map accompanied by empty assertions that, whilst they are not the decision makers here they have
“acted” in putting forward proposals and the lack of any evidence means it is hard for their proposals or
themselves to be scrutinised. Opponents of the proposed Beverley and Sculcoates Ward, which alas puts
us in the politically uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Labour Group, on the other hand have
offered Customer Segmentation data, the Council’s Constitution, school catchment areas, measurements
55 A recent Council motion suggests that whoever is elected and whoever forms a coalition or a Cabinet, there will be some form of Area Governance. 56 Downfield Avenue to Norfolk Street (representing a measurement from the most northern street in the proposed ward to the most southern) 57 Downfield Avenue to Wellington Street West (the first street on entering the City at its northern boundary to the last street before the River Humber) 58 From granting a Charter for the already extant Hull town by King Edward I in 1299 to the 1960’s build at the other end of Beverley Road just to take two random points in time for a road that has been present even longer. 59 From: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the‐7‐principles‐of‐public‐life/the‐7‐principles‐of‐public‐life‐‐2 Accessed 10.20pm 12th viii 2017
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and other incontrovertible data. Whilst the selection, and perhaps more significantly the rejection of facts,
may admit itself of a bias or a prejudice it does at least hold up a lantern of light through which the prism
of scrutiny may be admitted. That these assertions have been made by the Liberal Democrat Leader60
who speaks so convincingly of the need to merge Sculcoates Lane with the wider Beverley Road
community inspires a degree of sardonic amusement when, with candour, he asks us to believe the
proposals of his group represent the views of the community whilst admitting that “the current Ward
Councillors have had little engagement with the Sculcoates area”. Party members resident in that area
are very well aware, from the very many newsletters through their doors that the ever‐agreeable Liberal
Democrat Leader is in fact the local councillor!
We continue to find the case for this proposed ward unconvincing and lacking any positive
evidence‐based reasons for it, whilst the case against is more clearly supported by facts aligned to the
criteria that also apply in this exercise. A Beverley & Sculcoates Ward this large will give any incumbent
an undue influence on the decision‐making processes of the Council, it could lead to Stasis in decision‐
making, or abuse of power and though “could” is not “will”, the failure to promote effective local
government by assisting in ensuring sound governance arrangements are a legitimate matter for the
LGBCE and a potential concern in a highly charged political environment. The LGBCE possibly seem
uncomfortable with these proposals because they themselves say “We accept that the communities in this
ward are linked by a connection to Beverley Road but they are spread out along its length and we would
be particularly interested in the views of local residents and others in relation to this ward as part of the
consultation on our draft recommendations.”61 We are far more convinced that a three‐member Beverley
Ward, should such be essential and we are not convinced it is, is better served by connecting the
communities proposed in the eastern part of Wyke to those of the current Beverley Ward and reflecting
the area south of Clough Road and east of Beverley Ward – verily a student area which is the dynamic
much favoured by the Liberal Democrats and erroneously attributed to Bricknell.62
60 Councillor Mike Ross. Resident of Bricknell Ward and a colleague who we regard as a friend socially but that does not gainsay public Duty to comment. 61 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 60 62 See page 49 of this submission for the fallacy of that argument.
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WYKE
It gave little pleasure to confirm we were right when we said “Confident, based on initial proposals
last time, others would seek to gerry‐mander away Conservative representation on the council…”.1 It is
perhaps a little disappointing that the LGBCE should propose Wyke Ward, tacitly accepting the flawed
arguments adumbrated by those anxious to achieve by the Review process what neither Party has
achieved recently by the fair means of the ballot box. However, we note, and indeed welcome, the point
made more recently by the LGBCE, “We accept that there are differences between the Bricknell and
Newland communities and, were we not constrained by the presumption in favour of three‐councillor
wards, it may have been possible to adopt the Conservative Group proposal”.2
If the LGBCE will excuse us, we must again point out our belief there is no presumption at all in
favour of three‐member wards and, once the principle of an absolute only three‐member ward solution
fell then it is erroneous to interpolate an assumption that there will be. There is no assumption on behalf
of our electorate, indeed we doubt they have given the number of their councillors any real thought, but
they are exercised about the sense of community – as indeed are citizens in Newland Ward. The
assumption or maybe presumption, that an arbitrary number outweighs the LGBCE’s three guiding
principles seems to be on weak ground and as it is not, nor never was, in the heart of this Group, nor the
Liberal Democrats who have both never set an all three‐member plan, and only briefly in the minds of
Labour (who drew one only) so who has presumed this? Parliament/the Secretary of State are unlikely to
have considered how many wards there are, the Groups on Hull City Council seem unconcerned about
weighting all wards the same way and have put “community” at the forefront of all their (differing)
criteria. No member of the public gives thought to a presumption in favour of three‐member Wards, and
if you are a resident of Bricknell and are only 50 you will have had 2,3, or 4 councillors at various periods
‐ and were probably little exercised by the number but more so by the quality or the Party. It is not entirely
clear why the LGBCE are concerned about a presumption in favour of three‐member wards: electoral
equality is met by ensuring the City has the electors divided by the number of councillors agreed – the
rest is academic. If the principle of voting by rotation is accepted, and it has been by the two other Groups,
then that rotation applies not to any ward but to the member – legally an individual is elected for a fixed‐
term and is judged at the end of that term not the Party, or any slate, or any ward. We do not elect a
slate, legally, we elect individuals and if the principle of rejecting a political Party lock, stock, and barrel in
an allin/all out election is rejected then there is no absolute imperative that “oh we must be able to kick
out the entire third of a council – that will teach them”. A proportion is an acceptance that it is not the
whole; as long as all voters get to judge their representative every four years or some such similar fixed
term then voter equality is met.
If the test of voter equality is taken as meaning all votes are equal they are indeed as one person,
has one vote. If the interpretation of the principle of voter equality is that all must be free to reject their
representatives at the same time, then it is time to meet the last unmet Chartist demand and have annual
elections. Any politician who can do something unpopular never faces the whole electorate – only those
of one ward or seat get the chance to directly express their view, and even then it could be a ward
1 C&U Submission, October 2016 pp. 10 2 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 97
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colleague who is in the firing line at that point in the proportional or roiattingelectoral cycle. Voter
equality is largely a chimera, the best test is as the LGBCE have done and divide the city electoral figure
by the (broadly) agreed number of councillors and, applying the logic of the decision about wards crossing
the River Hull, also reflect the population divide thus. Once that headline figure is reached then the
obligation to ensure each councillor represents approximately the same number of voters has been met
and there is no presumption in favour of three‐member wards. There may well have been custom and
practice, it is far from unknown, one may even say it is typical, but there is absolutely no expectation of
universality, as Hull can attest to and has done for over a decade. Were there no other factors to consider
then yes that presumption may be met, and probably should be, but there are more to consider. To
sacrifice good government, to alienate the citizens we all serve, and to do so by treating humans merely
as accounting blocks would be the ultimate in dehumanisation and State assertion – this at a time when
the metropolitan bubble talk about voter disengagement?
So, if the LGBCE do not mind, we will further reinforce that which they are minded to accept, as
part of raising the bar, and we will try to demonstrate how failure to recognise the diversity on the ground
and not just as an acknowledged fact (“We accept there are differences…”) is likely to lead to a breach of
some, and in some instances all, the three published and universally understood guiding principles, to the
detriment of the public weal and the reputation of both the Council and the LGBCE. To “die in a ditch”
for a principle is understandable, but to do so for one that is not adumbrated by any political Group or
any citizen seems undesirable when consensus can ultimately be reached around lines on a map
It is also interesting to note that the Kingswood Ward proposals attracted 43 comments and two
in support,3 whereupon the LGBCE withdrew their support for their own proposals and proposed an
alternative solution. The alternative solution became a three‐member Ward but it did so, we sincerely
believe, on the basis of objections around community – even if we believe those arguments to not be
weighted entirely correctly. Meanwhile the Wyke Ward proposals attracted 44 comments with 12 in
support, which may be a higher percentage of support (although if some of those indicating thus will
forgive us remarking their loyalties will be a matter of common‐knowledge on the local scene) but also
there were 176 people across both Newland and Bricknell Wards who objected: yet the LGBCE stayed firm
to a much less commended scheme. We are sure that nobody believes the Conservative Group, or Party,
has 176 activists to sign a petition which was only up for a few weeks latterly in the consultation period.
We are also sure that while some may say the LGBCE presumption, for it does seem to be theirs, in favour
of three‐member Wards meant they were willing to abandon a two‐member one with a gleeful heart and
a clear conscience that was not the reason put forward by any citizen of Kingswood ‐ nobody at Kingswood
said “we don’t like your idea because we only get two councillors”. The LGBCE accepted community based
arguments in Kingswood and seem not to have listened to them in Bricknell and Newland thereby giving
grounds for suggestions that their willingness to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests
and identities of local communities is rather partial. There have been many citizens who, having
contributed to the LGBCE consultation proposals, feel disappointed that such an open and shut case that
there are indeed “differences between the Bricknell and Newland communities” has not resulted in a
change of direction and as a result feel alienated from the system: which hardly helps promote effective
local government. Indeed, it was that very diversity of the two communities that led to people, on both
3 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 52
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sides, expressing justified concern that there would be a dilution of focus on their needs – and helping
citizens is what local government is all about if it is to be effective local government.
URBAN GRAIN
How a place feels is a matter deeply discussed by urban geographers, planners and how it can
impact on lives is a matter of deep concern to sociologists and psychologists. Indeed, the human condition
is studied in so many different disciplines that it is easier to conclude that a sense of place is a key human
concern. Politicians of course know they must deal with the whole enchilada, we must serve all in general
and our area in particular. So we talk on everything and have all manner of diverse opinions when it comes
to strategic overview but we are also advocates for our area. To be an advocate, or to be a successful
advocate, suggests you know your topic and are focussed in your arguments. Because local arguments
are always to be weighed against other local arguments, some of which may be held as a polar opposite,
this is why the community test is so important. Abraham Lincoln’s dictum about unity4 is as true now as
it was then and we need united communities competing on an even footing with other communities
equally sure of what they want if we are to ensure not only healthy democratic debate but also effective
local government, which is a key LGBCE requirement.
The current Newland Ward even looks markedly different from the current Bricknell Ward. From
the top floor of the Brynmor Jones Library, Newland Ward can be seen in all its virtually treeless glory in
Photo 1. By a trick of perspective Newland Ward looks like the urban clearing in a forest, but even
accepting tree canopies spread and block the view to the ground below, the view of Bricknell Ward shews
that the “forest” is in fact the plethora of tree‐lined streets with gardens that have trees in them.
4 Abraham Lincoln, “A House divided against itself cannot stand” 16th vi 1859, Illinois State Capitol of Springfield.
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Photo 1 – Looking South‐East to Newland Ward
Photo 2 – Looking South to Bricknell Ward from the same point– the edge of the left‐
hand brick building is the same as the building in the centre of the preceding photograph.
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The attempt at a panoramic shot below shews the fact that Newland appears an oasis of asphalt
amongst the verdant rus in urbe of Bricknell and surrounding Wards. Electronically the zoom is quite clear
where Newland Ward is, regarding the previous photographs,
but below is the same photo with the built up and treeless Newland ward emphasised by a red circle.
The pictures are sent electronically as well so that the zoom will work and shew detail better. It
was beyond the ability of the Group to find how a panoramic shot could be taken with the zoom engaged
on an Apple ‘phone.
THESE STREETS ON THE GROUND
The differences between the existing wards are equally apparent when we get below the tree
canopy and look at the streets on the ground.
Photo 3 – Panoramic shot of the south of Cottingham Road – Newland Ward to the left and Bricknell to the right of the picture
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Photo 4 –
Beverley Road,
Newland Ward –
the main arterial
road in Newland
Ward. This picture
shows the part
with large
Victorian houses
broken down into
multiple flats and
wheeled bins on
the street or in the
front yard. The
traffic flows at all
hours.
Photo 5– Bricknell
Avenue, Bricknell
Ward – the main
arterial road in
Bricknell Ward. It
is often referred
to as “suburbia”
because of the
green space.
There is mild
traffic during rush
hour but at other
times traffic flows
are lower
andappreciably
tail off through
the night.
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Photo 6– Newland Avenue, Newland Ward – The main shopping street in the ward. The retail
offer stretches the entire 900m length of the street, with a well‐enforced parking scheme in place.
Photo 7 – Bricknell Avenue, Bricknell Ward – The main shopping street in the ward. The Tesco
Express, inset, is opposite the Sainsbury’s Local and has parking for less than 15 cars. The row of
shops in the main picture comes to an end at the red line.
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Photo 8 – Ryde Street, Newland Ward – a typical Newland Ward street. Homes
with little or no curtilage, and very limited greenery. Low car ownership.
Photo 9 – Hotham Road, Bricknell Ward – a typical Bricknell Ward street. Homes
with front gardens or drives trees and grass verges. Relatively high car ownership.
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The issue of car ownership is touched on lightly in the captions above but, in common with many
cities is a stress factor. Despite being an outlying ward on the edge of the City, Bricknell is still the ward
with the fourth lowest percentage of households without access to a car or van, whereas Newland is the
fourth highest percentage of residents without access to either. However, the bald statistic hides another
truth: Newland Ward has a number of major bus routes running through it and those that have their own
vehicular accessibility often struggle to park in streets that were not even designed for pony trap
ownership. Meanwhile in Bricknell we must fight every year to retain the bus service, but overall parking
is not a problem – we are not even united on transport issues.
This simple visual presentation is not to judge the life‐styles of either community. Either
community could be a rational rejection of the other and diversity of offer is welcome for the strength
and sustainability of many places in a City – but within one Ward it is to set up a conflict. Two sets of
people “…between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s
habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different
Figure 9.1 ‐ Car or van availability per household, measured by ward
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planets,”5 who do indeed live next to each other and in co‐existing harmony but who will call on their
Councillors for different services. How can that not be given the property tenure differences as well:‐
Every penny of public money spent on trees and green spaces is money spent where one
community is seen as getting more resources than the other, and where endless public funds go in
resolving fly‐tipping that is another community feeling their taxes are paid for others to get a benefit for
something they feel may be self‐wrought. That would be reasonable in terms of macro‐policy and
spending, all political units of administration are an accumulation of different communities and all are a
set of compromises – however in an era of growing subsidiarity and where local councillors are much
more empowered to spend money and act solely within their local wards6 then administrative function
and cohesion becomes more critical and those tensions become more visual and specific
5 Benjamin Disraeli, “Sybil, or a tale of two nations” (1845) 6 KUHCC blazed the way in this regard and we were happy to be in that vanguard helping make it happen, being a hard‐driving Area chairman with external commendation, and now fighting a rear‐guard action against the centralising forces of conformity. At our peak area budgets were a six‐figure sum we could spend in the ward merely as local Councillors – and Bricknell Ward was the least well‐funded under the “interesting” funding weighting formula. That we got so much done – roads resurfaced, streets relit, alley‐ways fenced off – was a result of hard‐driving from the ward members (including the Labour one when there was one for it empowers councillors to their abilities not their Party) and the social cohesion of the Ward meaning there was an identity of and shared ownership of what constituted an issue, with no need to trade off and compromise leading to ineffective delivery.
Figure 9.2 ‐ Car or van availability per household, measured by ward
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THE UNIVERSITY OR NOT
Ironically perhaps, after having used the top floor of the University Library for photographic
purposes the need arises to address the claims that Bricknell must be a university or student ward. A
facile observation would say Bricknell was a University linked ward by its geography, this is the view that
says the ward is next to the University so it must be a part of the community – I am in a stable cleaning it
out so I must be a horse level of intellectual dishonesty. At a factual level, the argument falls down as
well – nobody is suggesting University Ward itself should be part of the amorphous “blob” the Liberal
Democrats opine are all University related. Despite the fact the University is in University Ward and is the
biggest land‐owner after the City Council, which owns the huge Council housing estate around it, the
Liberal Democrats seem strangely reluctant to include University Ward in their “grouping “of university
related wards. Despite students occupying much of the private housing in the area, despite the recent
announcement that Halls were to be extensively built on the campus so there are already several
thousand students living in University Ward, and two thousand more are expected, then that is not a
consideration for the “university blob” but a small element of University students in Bricknell Ward, a
lesser number and percentage than in University Ward, defines Bricknell as a University area but not
University Ward? Demonstrably this argument is wrong at a conceptual level but, before we turn to the
cold hard data why would one political Group in particular be so determined to hoodwink every Boundary
Commissioner in the area – be they for the Council or the Parliamentary seats? The answer is in the latter
– the Parliamentary seats.
If the Labour Party are to be defeated in their Parliamentary grip on the City which ward goes
where is critical. The Liberal Democrat proposal to both sets of Commissioners is built upon their
professed belief that they want to create a “…community centre around the University of Hull campus”. 7
There is no doubt that this is the Party line – former councillors who used to represent seats in the
neighbouring Local Authority have been wheeled out to say it;8 West Hull constituency Councillors,9 and
of course North Hull Councillors who do actually represent University students – the Avenue Councillor
openly saying so, the Beverley Ward councillor who also has more students than there are in Bricknell,
seemingly conveniently unaware of the fact that his Ward should be covered by his Party’s proposal.10
7 Liberal Democrat Submission, March 2017, pp. 44 8 David Nolan (ERYC residing Lib Dem former Cllr) “…putting the Bricknell ward area into the Hull Central seat makes sense, that area tends to identify towards the Avenues rather than, for example, out towards Cottingham” ‐ in the Lib Dem Submission, Op. cit, p11. Well of course why would we look towards Cottingham when we have a large number of Hull Council houses built on land in ERYC’s Cottingham and which mean constant liaison with the Councillors in ERYC on ward matters? 9 Claire Thomas (West Hull Constituency Cllr) “On a wider Hull basis, I do think that the Bricknell, Newland, Avenue, University, and Beverley wards are a very clear university community” ‐ Lib Dem Submission, Op. cit, pp. 30 10 Dave McCobb (North Hull Cllr) “Having a constituency for [inter alia]…the communities around the University…
Bricknell, Newland, University, Beverley, and Avenue Wards” Lib Dem Submission, Op. cit, pp. 6
John Robinson (North Hull Cllr) “in the new proposed Central Constituency, it is my understanding that amongst other
wards, Avenue ward, Bricknell and Newland form part of that constituency. I actually think that makes a lot of sense
from one particular aspect of the population, which is to do with the university population.” Lib Dem Submission, Op.
cit, pp. 25
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Whilst neither the LGBCE nor we are here to debate those Parliamentary proposals it is important
in understanding proposals made to the LGBCE that we go to first principles, principles that do materially
impact on the LGBCE remit in their obligation to promote effective local government. The most marginal
seat in Hull is the future shape of the proposed Hull West and Haltemprice constituency. Widely believed
amongst the local and national political glitterati to be a 2‐ or 3‐ way marginal, the three main national
political parties are “proving” which Hull wards need to be in the seat in ways that conveniently seem to
best suit their purpose! A major key is the inclusion, or exclusion, of Bricknell Ward and certain Labour or
Liberal Democrat Wards in the current Parliamentary seat of Hull West and Hessle.
The national Conservatives want Bricknell in the new Constituency where estimates mean we will
be slightly ahead of the Liberal‐Democrats as the main challenger to Labour. We will openly admit the
Group Leader was told to attend the local inquiry to support our aims and say Bricknell had close links
with the current Haltemprice constituency ‐ and did so with carefully selected appropriate words. The
Liberal Democrats need the converse, for them to be the main challenger, on no accounts must Bricknell
go to West Hull, so a specious link to the University and to shackle Bricknell Ward with other Wards as a
break to it flying off freely to West Hull is necessary. After all, if a link can be established with the university
then Bricknell should not be separated from that community. However, if even then the Bricknell Eagle
flies free, to adapt the old parable, then the Liberal Democrat Wrens will have a chance to fly with it
arguing “connectivity”. The fact that the Parliamentary Commissioners will have to look at ward units
that probably will not exist by then is also a factor. It does no harm from the Liberal Democrat corner
that, should Conservative representations be successful, they could at the very least argue a “pairing”
with Newland Ward because, “in the interests of effective local government” having half of “Wyke Ward”
in West Hull and half in North Hull would not be effective local government – on which actually we would
agree.11
For those interested Labour don’t want Bricknell in West Hull and are currently trying to ensure
their block‐vote of St Andrews is included – a ward the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are seeking
to move out of Hull West by arguing the fishing connection through to the City Centre.
The strategy is clear then: group Bricknell with some other seats to make sure it is less likely for
consideration to be displaced, but that if it is it will be linked with wards that the Liberal Democrats have
a strong presence in to try and dilute that factor.. However, even understanding the underlying motives,
the key claim made by the Liberal Democrats is “it is all about the University” and even Labour mentioned
that, “In many ways this is the second Ward of influence of Hull University”12 are points the LGBCE seem
sympathetic to, so what is the cold data?
“Newland Park is home to many people who work at or have worked at the University”13 which is a very
out‐of‐date statement. In 1983, when the current Conservative and Unionist Group first became engaged
with the then‐Newland, now‐Bricknell Ward, lecturers had employment tenure and made up the largest
single percentage of employment – though if memory serves, still not into double figures. A street where
the current property prices largely range between £300,000‐500,000+14 attracts few lecturers now in the
11 The fact we are aware of one Ward up in the North‐east that is in an amazing three constituencies – Sedgefield, Easington, and a Durham seat – suggests this can be a problem for local representatives and citizens. 12 Labour Submission, Op. cit, pp. 8 13 Liberal Democrat Submission, Op. cit, pp. 44 14 Figures found using Zoopla: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/house‐prices/hull/newland‐park/ Accessed 18th viii 2017
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post‐tenure era after Edgar Paige was given three months’ notice in 1981 and the Court of Appeal upheld
the University decision in 1991. Mortgage lenders in the era of tenure had loaned relatively low‐paid
lecturers disproportionate sums because they had literally “a job for life”. Academics who live in the Park
now are generally those that lectured the Conservative Group back in the Seventies and who nowadays
are usually “Visiting” or “Emeritus” Professors with less than a handful still teaching full time.
So is Bricknell Ward an academic‐free zone today? No indeed not. Lecturers today are scattered
throughout the ward, in much more modest housing, in streets such as Barrington Avenue, Goddard
Avenue and Kenilworth Avenue. However, in any street where we know there are lecturers there are, in
each and every of those streets, more local government workers resident and those in the broadest
definition of the health sector than there are lecturers. The plain facts are there are more council
employees, more health workers, and there are even more solicitors in Bricknell than there are University
academics – the claims will just not fly and portray an obsolete level of “knowledge”.15
The misrepresentations continue with the assertion “The area has an identity formed
around working or studying at the University”.16 Well that would be of interest to those on the Council
estate built in the 1950’s, those who live near the industrial estate that still has some heavy engineering,
or what counts as that in the modern western age, or the very many people who realise that the old Hull
Corporation acquired the land, and negotiated access through the railway embankment to build suburban
houses for the Metroland ideal in the 1930’s and with no regard whatsoever for the University itself.
Although the University is a significant, and in some parts of the City a dominant presence, that simply is
not true for Bricknell. The University is a very substantial land‐owner with the campus (University Ward);
it used to own major proportions of streets (Cranbrook Avenue, and Auckland Avenue in University Ward)
before the recent sale to student landlords; and the student rented sector is very significant in Newland
Ward. The Liberal Democrats rightly identified “All the terraced streets in that area [the Cottingham Road
shopping area] (on both sides of Cottingham Road) are predominantly student housing”17 which is true of
University Ward and Newland Ward, particularly Polling Districts NWDA, NWDC, and NWDE. The
assertion about terraced streets being predominantly student housing is also becoming true for the
terraces of large “Avenues style housing” at the very southern tip of the current Beverley Ward itself also
all of which contain significant student numbers amounting to 20% of the current ward. Yet, after a
plethora of supporting evidence where it is incontrovertibly true about the university domination of other
wards in the area there is a silence from the Liberal Democrats on what it is in Bricknell Ward which
justifies the assertion: if the facts were there they would have been produced but they are not, they
cannot be, and the claim should be dismissed and all the conclusions that follow from such specious
“reasoning” unworthy of linking with the concept of a university. One thing is certainly true – there is no
street, terraced or not, in Bricknell Ward where the houses are “…predominantly student housing”. The
reason the Conservative Group introduced an Article 4 direction about HIMO’s, through Wyke Area
15 This is hard for us to evidence because we just “know” from canvassing regularly and extensively. Data protection
regulations quite rightly mean we cannot share information and respect for privacy suggests it would also be wrong
–as well as a breach of electoral regulations. Nevertheless, we ask the LGBCE to believe us – they may be assured
we know our Ward given the close fights Labour push us to so are not idle members with the luxury of a somnolence
inducing large majority! We also follow the convention of not asking a (known) Council officer their voting intention,
so are very aware how many staff we have resident, and it exceeds academics. 16 Liberal Democrat Submission, Op. cit. pp. 44 17 Ibid.
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Committee, was precisely because local residents wanted to prevent the spread of a different community
in what is essentially a suburban residential ward. In Wyke Area Committee, the Avenue and Newland
members kindly supported the introduction of an Article 4 from a desire to “cap” their existing level for
what we would call in this process promoting effective local government18 by ensuring that the ward
[continued to] reflect the interests and identities of local communities.
The census data suggests that much of the population of Bricknell Ward is made up of people who
would be expected to consider university or some such professional training, and yet today’s students are
often less inclined to travel even the limited distance some were considering in previous generations.
Indeed, the University of Hull is making strong pitches in three areas: the Asian sub‐continent, clearing,
and its own back door – in this case Bricknell Ward is indeed opposite its front door! So is there a hidden
nest of students in Bricknell Ward that will sway a belief it is a ward linked to the university? Here are the
figures, helpfully contrasted with “the ward next door to the Ward opposite the University”:‐
19
The cold hard data refutes the politically motivated claims of the Liberal Democrats and suggests
that if they are wrong on a simple enough matter like this to establish their assertions are meaningless
and it would be unsound for the LGBCE to rely on them. If the LGBCE wish the bar to be high for
establishing a two‐member ward then surely the bar should be at least off the ground for any three‐
member ward proposed on the basis of misrepresentation? If the assertions presented do not, in this
ward as well, pass the Nolan tests20 then there should be some very serious consideration given to the
quality of claims by those in a position of responsibility for making submissions to a statutory body which
may lead to suggestions the statutory decision maker may make a perverse decision. In fact, according to
census data largely presented in the Housing section below, although the student accommodation in
Newland Ward has risen by some 29% in the ten years between the last two censuses the total number
of houses in sole student occupation was given as 723 in 2011. In the same period, the figure in Bricknell
18 The matter eventually went to Cabinet because other Areas thought a blanket ban would impact on their housing
stock and argued the Constitution said this would impact on more than one areas [NB please see our point on page
36 about Beverley and Sculcoates with nine adjacent wards). The Bricknell Article 4 was commented on by Marfleet
which shews how elastic the current constitution is and in the end an Article 4 was brought in which only covers a
small part of Bricknell Ward in the immediate vicinity of the University. Now that the Article 4 has been seen not to
destroy the housing market for students, as they predicted at the behest of certain Landlords the topic is open for
review again shewing the university has an omnipotent presence in the area but not a major presence on the ground
in Bricknell Ward which people do not want to vary the local character. 19 Data retrieved from www.ukcensusdata.com in July 2017 20 Specifically, again, the failure to meet the openness criteria “…Holders of public office should …give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands”; and on this occasion at least the objectivity criteria “…In carrying out public business…, holders of public office should make choices on merit and facts not on personal judgements”
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may well have increased by just over 100% but that only takes the “all student” household to 17 from just
8! The explosion in accommodation agencies in the local area is certainly evident on the ground in
Newland Ward, it has not been the case in Bricknell Ward even with the growth of “buy to let”. The
evidence simply is not there that Bricknell is an overwhelming student ward as asserted by the Liberal
Democrats, or to a much lesser extent Labour in their throwaway comment. It is worth mentioning that
Labour proposals seek to gerrymander Bricknell Ward, and they have proffered lukewarm support for the
LGBCE proposals about Wyke but at least they put a veneer on their politics when they said, “Although
politics is not a consideration we have sought to ensure the area’s character, recognising this is the only
area of the Ward [sic?] that votes for the current national Government party as we seek political
plurality.”21
The LGBCE proposal for a Wyke Ward therefore contradicts the very real evidence about the
University and by seeking to merge two very different communities we venture to suggest will not
promote effective local government because it dilutes the clear focus possible in the current Bricknell
and Newland wards which do at least ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and
identities of local communities. Unsurprisingly we do accuse the Liberal Democrats of flagrant
gerrymandering, motivated by their strong desire to expand into Bricknell area: efforts heavily defeated
even during their strong municipal campaigns and the rather more covert activity during the penultimate
General Election before we returned to being the secong Party in the City at the most recent one.. Equally
though we do reference the equally flagrant politics of Labour who nearly won recently and clearly want
to graft on more of their voters, which the LGBCE proposal does neatly.
HOMES
Having discussed the urban grain, and student occupation it is time to take matters to their most
basic at a micro level – an individual’s house and home. Whether you live in Newland, or Bricknell, or
Wyke Ward on this general point is immaterial, the house you occupy is still your home for your enjoyment
and preferably, in a civilised community, without marring the enjoyment of your neighbours. Howeve,r
how a person enjoys their home can vary, and indeed it does vary, as does property tenure. Again, there
is no best tenure, and we don’t judge, but there are different levels of investment in the local community.
Much of an income tied up in a mortgage tends to produce a different outlook on the bricks and mortar
than when it belongs to someone else. Which is not to say rented houses are not much‐loved homes they
can be also, the key point is roots – who has them, and how they impact on resident outlook.
To start with the student community, as the incorrect slang often has it in the City for it does not
follow that a House In Multiple Occupation (HIMO) where all residents are young need necessarily be
students – though the facts suggest the majority are.
As we have mentioned earlier the number of students actually in Bricknell Ward is very low, and
contains many still living at home rather than in what is often thought of as “student accommodation”
21 Labour Group Submission, Op. Cit. pp. 8
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which is borne out by the low number of student houses in the ward. Indeed, the next table shews the
numbers of HIMOs in both halves of the proposed Ward.
Clearly there is a huge difference in housing tenure, and as we have seen the life‐styles that go
with the very different age‐demographic, which is touched on later. Local administration with such widely
competing demands for ever‐diminishing funds tends to make us believe that setting up further tensions
between two communities vying for the same pot is not at all going to promote effective local
government, and to fail to do so for the sake of a “three‐member ward” concept that no citizen has
mentioned in their submission suggests we all, collectively as those entrusted with local government as
practitioners or the LGBCE, are doing a disservice to the public.
The difference in housing tenure is perhaps best summed up, in a microcosm by Goddard Avenue,
the street justified for “re‐unification” by the Liberal Democrats with, “The proposals would see the
artificial split of Goddard Avenue removed and the two ends of the road reunited”22 as if this was one
community artificially wrenched apart and pining for a mythical reunification ‐ but the LGBCE seem
inclined to place weight on it. However, such claims about unification are misleading: not least because
the “unification” itself is an artificial concept for two streets built either side of World War I to a different
style, scale, and street pattern. Firstly, problems of rubbish, on the scale discussed earlier, are frequently
evident on the Newland Ward portion of Goddard Avenue and they are never evident on the Bricknell
part.
Secondly the straight and very wide road of late C19 early C20 terraced housing with squares off
part of Goddard Avenue architecturally bears little relation to inter‐war semis and the occasional terrace
on the very narrow road of Bricknell’s Goddard Avenue.
22 Liberal Democrat Submission, Op. Cit. pp. 44
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Thirdly, whilst both sections may have problems with cars, as indeed does most of the City built
before WW2, and a depressingly large part of that built afterwards, the problems are of a different style.
In Newland it is parking haphazardly on the verge because there are, even in a ward with relatively low
car ownership, too few parking spaces on‐street for those houses fronting onto the street let alone those
in the squares off it. In Bricknell the vehicular problem is the impassability of it only intermittently around
peak time journeys – the product of a carriageway that is only three lanes wide and has some on‐street
parking from those with more houses than can be accommodated off‐street.
Photo 10 –
Goddard Avenue,
Newland Ward
half – here you see
the often crowded
parking situation,
yet with a
somewhat wider
carriageway than
in the Bricknell half
of the street.
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Fourthly, the two communities largely look to different shopping streets. The lower car‐density
owning Newland Ward residents of Goddard Avenue look towards Newland Avenue for their shopping
offer locally. The preponderance of car driving Bricknell Ward residents from Goddard Avenue, if they
shop locally at all, tend to shop locally on Chanterlands Avenue. Of course, it is hard to prove that without
an extensive survey, and the Liberal Democrats are quoted as “…arguing that the shops on Newland
Avenue were used by many people from Bricknell…”23 We trust that this empty assertion, as ever backed
up by no evidence in defiance of the Nolan principles, will be considered against the background of the
equally specious claims about Bricknell as a university ward – self‐serving wish fulfilment not the truth.
Whilst clearly the Conservative and Unionist group have an interest in the status quo, and that too could
be called self‐serving, we hope that our reliance on the presentation of facts will predispose the LGBCE to
believe that, where we assert rather than evidence, our assertions are merely that because they are not
readily quantifiable but that we do have a local knowledge based around decades of service and that
therefore we may get the benefit of the doubt?
Fifthly the customer segmentation map (Figure 10 overleaf) shews a clear and marked difference
between the two halves of Goddard Avenue, which so largely stand proxy for the two wards the LGBCE
propose joining.
23 LGBCE, Op. cit. June 2017, Para 94
Photo 11 –
Goddard Avenue,
Bricknell Ward half
– here you see the
narrower road but
the existence of
grass verges. The
parking situation is
much less crowded
than in the
Newland half.
There are also
clearly different
architecture styles,
a more suburban
than City feel.
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We pass no comments and make no judgements but clearly there are two very different
residential offers to hand, offering a choice to some, and once again this is not the “unity of local
community” that is pretended. Indeed, there are those in Bricknell Ward who, purely on traffic
management grounds, want to either block the two halves of the road off or introduce a one‐way system
(as yet unspecified which flow), whereas informal conversations with Cllr Ross suggest the idea has no
traction at all in his ward.
Goddard Avenue in some ways serves as a microcosm for housing mix in the proposed Wyke
Ward. The microcosm of Goddard Avenue, and the inter‐war nature of the Bricknell Ward part of it may
be extrapolated into a general commentary on the ward itself as the houses are so representative. In the
Council’s proposals for warding in the last review the council officers wrote,
“The new two member Newland [subsequently the Boundary Commission decided we had to
relinquish claims to “Newland” and the ward was renamed Bricknell Ward] is a suburban middle‐class
area centred around the Bricknell Avenue and Cottingham Road areas. The housing tenure is very similar
right up to the City’s north western administrative boundary. There is a small Council estate, but many of
the occupants have bought their dwellings, making it similar in terms of aspiration and community identity
to other areas within this new ward.” 24
Can a “council estate” be homogenous with such a ward? Were the Liberal Democrats right to
propose crossing the major east‐west road in the City and merge with the “council estate” across the road
in University Ward once all the inter‐war suburban houses on both sides of Cottingham Road and its
24 Kingston upon Hull City Council Proposed Warding Scheme, as submitted to The Local Government Commission
for England Periodic Electoral Review at the last Review, pp. 3, para 8 iii.
Figure 10 –
Customer
Segmentation
Data for the
Newland and
Bricknell
halves of
Goddard
Avenue –
enclosed
within the
oval. No
match at all
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immediate hinterlands were passed? Emphatically they were not and it is a simplistic use of the phrase
“council estate” to assume they are at all alike. We will not waste time arguing why the two estates are
so different since LGBCE saw that was the case and rejected those proposals, be it noted because they
clearly did not pass the community identity test let alone the logic of crossing Cottingham Road with a
ward for what we believe would be the first time ever.
There is another aspect of tenure around ownership. The days the Council owned nearly half the
housing stock in the City are a receding memory for most on the council now – and within Wyke Area
Committee it was never so, with Bricknell having by far the greatest number. However, the Council still
manages council‐house stock and it is instructional how they do it to ensure that the pattern of wards
reflects the interests and identities of local communities and thereby promote effective local
government. The council housing management is done on a geographical area basis that, were we to
take power, we would not be minded to reverse. Whatever the political disputes about the political
outputs the are based system works managerially. As can be seen in the map below, Figure 11, Newland
Ward, along with Avenue Ward is managed as the Central Area whereas Bricknell is managed as an entity
itself:‐
The reason for the seeming anomaly is that originally Bricknell Estate was part of Central Area,
who ahrdly talked about it and seemed faintly embarrassed to have it. Eventually the officers transferres
Figure 11 – Map of council house management areas
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it to be managed as aprt of North Hull – the member meetings there were ebven more excerutiating for
trying to get Bricknell Estate matters on the agenda25
26
As Bricknell Ward housing homogenises so paradoxically in Newland or, the east of the proposed
Wyke Ward, does the same but in a different manner. In the 1980s what has been referred to as “the
settled community” were a still sizeable presence in Newland and in many streets they were still the
majority. As the Liberal Democrats point out in their submission, and we quoted earlier, that is no longer
necessarily the case, and the housing tenure figures make for interesting reading:
25 The famous exchange being: “Cllr Fareham in grumpy mood “Do we ever talk about problems on the Bricknell estate here?”. The Housing Officer, confirming the view of so many residents that they were the “forgotten estate” replied “Why Cllr Fareham? Is there grass growing through the paving stones?”. Because the officer still works for us this has to be anonymised but we do use the story regularly to shew what we were up against. Nowadays we can actually have a fair crack of the whip because we are the topic, not an addendum in other, perhaps more intensive, estates. 26 Information gathered in an email received by Cllr John Fareham from David Richards on 3rd iii 2017
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The current situation in Newland Ward is instructional however. In our lifetime Newland Ward has
changed from being a residential area of mainly owner‐occupied people into something completely
different. As young people today have sought their starter homes in places such as Kingswood so the area
around the University became less in demand and residents started selling their houses to landlords. The
area is now xxxxxx split and the tensions have grown because the “original residents” feel they are
overlooked, their interests ignored, and everything caters for students or young people now: which is a
valid point of view but shews local government in a bad light because in a diverse and disunited
community it is not supplying effective governance. This was also reflected in the mutually exclusive
views of our survey reported in our last submission wherein the Student’s Union officially wrote and said
they felt their interests would be neglected if they merged with residential Bricknell Ward. Meanwhile
residential Bricknell ward were telling us, and the LGBCE, they felt who felt that they would become as
neglected as the remnants of the original community of Newland if forced into a merger and pointed to
those feelings expressed through the Newland Residents Association and other community groups27. Two
communities both feeling their interests are not served by conjoining with the other – a compelling point
of view seemingly disregarded in support of a vague liberal‐Democrat inspired idea, based on assertion
not evidence, that they are a community. Who knows best? Citizens or politicians who are not from that
area?
27 Interestingly apart from the Newland Park Resident’s Association there are currently no community groups active in a locality of Bricknell Ward, those that are active in Avenue Ward and Newland Ward shew no sign of wishing to extend their remit into the ward next door.
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NIGHT LIFE
Again, without judging there are very clear contrasts in the nightlife between those Wards the
Liberal Democrats all assert28 are united under the shadow of the university and which are plainly not.
The Licensing Department of Hull City Council produced a list of all the alcohol vending properties
in the Wyke and Northern areas of Hull, available to view in full at Online Appendix 1.29 There are a lot –
only 11 are in Bricknell Ward, which counts every convenience store, some private member sports clubs,
and even our micro‐brewery in a suburban garage – less across the whole ward than there are on Princes
Avenue (Avenue Ward) or Newland Avenue (Newland Ward) alone!
There are four pubs in Bricknell Ward, one is on an estate with very limited opening hours, one is
more or less at the centre of the ward at the National Avenue end and is very much a traditional
neighbourhood family pub. The two others are both on Cottingham Road – the Goodfellowship, and The
Old Grey Mare – both barely in the ward, and where the former is in transition from being a quiet local
pub to being a venue for sports/funerals/weddings. Nevertheless, the Goodfellowship is not a “nightclub
pub”. The Old Grey Mare, directly opposite the University, does have a few more students who use it,
largely day‐time use, and the brief foray into music themed “event” evenings was stopped by
overwhelming local opposition and protest so de facto even that pub is largely a “local”.
Bricknell Ward has few takeaways – an intermittently open one on the estate which, even on non‐
commercial rents struggles to be viable and so is indeed intermittently tenanted and generally not even
open in the evenings for hungry campaign teams! On Fairfax Avenue a take away comes and goes but
Bricknell Ward has, according to data sent to us from the Licensing Department, no takeaway open after
11pm – which is far from the case in the other wards that make‐up the Wyke and Northern Area
Committees30:‐
28 Liberal Democrat Submission, Op cit. 29 ONLINE APPENDIX 1 Given the size of the document, it was infeasible to include it within this document. Instead, it has been uploaded via Google Drive and is available at the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By4tySJluRZiRjgyUlNWX1RqZU0/view?usp=sharing 30 Data from KUHCC Environmental Health and Licencing records, unedited apart from losing white spaces.
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As a rule, the pavements of Bricknell Ward are citizen free by early evening and almost exclusively
empty from 11pm with only a light pedestrian flow between those times. Local residents generally do not
be over‐exuberant in behaviour or volume either.
In the meantime, the current Newland Ward especially, but even the current Beverley Ward at
the western side of its most southern boundary, have pubs and takeaways that are geared to the drinking
circuit and feature late‐night opening (in this context the phrase “late‐night opening” is meant to
encompass those that routinely stay open, be they pubs or takeaways, past the half‐past ten area.
Nevertheless many in the areas outside Bricknell Ward now stay open to 1am with a few having
permission to be open until 4am.) Young people are more usual on the streets here, the noise levels are
significantly greater as is the general level of “exuberance”. There is a youth orientated, fun fuelled,
“worry about tomorrow later” lifestyle.
Again, we sit not in judgement. As a Group when we were students one of us was definitely not
sober and conscientiously in the Library all the time (the other was!), and though we are both now rather
more filled with “gravitas” than “exuberance” we recognise the need, in a City, to provide a range of
activities for different cultural lifestyles sections of the community. Currently the issues are addressed by
Councillors representing competing attitudes being empowered to speak evenly and fairly on behalf of
two alternative and conflicting points of view.
AGE DEMOGRAPHICS
Indeed, these probably reflect the very different demographics by age between the two wards.
There is a substantial age discrepancy between the existing Bricknell and Newland wards, as
demonstrated in the table overleaf.
Figure 12 – Eateries and Takeaways in Wyke
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Age breakdown of residents of Hull’s wards 31
Age Newland % Bricknell %
0‐19 17.43 21.74
20‐39 54.73 22.93
40‐64 21.06 35.57
65+ 6.78 19.75
80+ 1.88 5.84
18‐24 31.98 8.56
Bricknell ward has a much older demographic, with 55.32% of residents aged 40 and over. In
Newland ward, this is dramatically the opposite, with 72.16% under the age of 40. Newland ward has a
high proportion of student rentals, as demonstrated earlier in the Customer Segmentation Map ands the
housing tenure section, and this is perhaps also demonstrated by the fact that 31.98% of the ward’s
residents are between the ages of 18 and 24 – substantially the highest percentage of any ward in the
city, with Bricknell having one of the lowest. Meanwhile, at the top end of the age range, Bricknell has the
second highest percentage of over 80‐year‐olds in the city, whilst Newland ward has the second lowest
percentage of those in that age range.
The figures are also demonstrated by the Hull JSNA Toolkit when considering the “Percentages
by adult life stage”.
Adult life stage breakdown of residents of Hull’s wards32
Adult Life Stage Newland % Bricknell %
16‐24: No Dependents 40.1 6.8
25‐34: No Dependents 14.2 6.6
35‐54: No Dependents 13.3 17
35‐54: Dependents 7.2 19.3
55‐64: Two or more person household, no Dependents
4 12.3
65‐74: Two or more person household, no Dependents
1.9 7.8
In these figures, we see that the trend in Newland Ward is for younger households with no
dependents, whereas in Bricknell Ward, it tends towards older households with a greater chance of
dependents in the household.
Whilst age demographics are not the only factor to consider when drawing up ward boundaries,
they are indeed a factor worthy of consideration, and add to the emerging trend of solid data. For
example, elderly care provision is a big issue for residents of Bricknell Ward, whereas it is not as much an
issue as, for example, student landlords in Newland Ward. Where wards are full of a hotchpotch of
demographics, it makes it more difficult for ward councillors to build up an expertise in those areas, and
31 Google Drive document, accessible at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By4tySJluRZiU3pUdkd5SjY5TW8/view?usp=sharing 32 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, pp. 170
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thus does not promote effective local government, as well as serving to dilute the focus of discretionary
funding. Similarly, those at different spots on the age range demographics often have different outlooks
on life as we saw earlier in the sections on night‐life and eating out for example.
MARITAL STATUS
Without commenting on the valid life‐choices faced the age demographics will almost certainly
present themselves in a different perception of being a family and marriage. This is not the first time we
have had to use the phrase “without expressing a view” when commenting on social expressions or life‐
choices – indeed although, or perhaps because, we both self‐identify as Christians perhaps we feel that is
best left to the Church. However even if politicians stay out of such issues they have to deal with the
choices people make in a free society, which is appropriate for people who are only public servants not
dictators. That focus is helped when there is unity in the social comity within the ward.
Marital status breakdown of residents of Hull’s wards33
Marital Status Newland % Bricknell %
Single 67.2 30.6
Married 19.7 50.6
Widowed 3.5 8.1
At the upper end of the demographic age range in Bricknell Ward, we see a large number of
widowed residents, a demographic most certainly not reflected in Newland Ward, and who of course have
a different outlook on life and different expectations from the Council.
ETHNICITY and EFL
That social comity, how it expresses itself, and indeed the discussion on understanding how we
politicians may best serve, leads inevitably to a discussion on the non‐aligned nature of the two wards the
LGBCE propose to merge.
Ethnicity breakdown of residents of Hull’s wards34
Ethnicity Newland % Bricknell %
White British 65.7 94.4
Other White 17.2 1.3
It is worthy of note that the proportion of those who do not speak English as the first language
varies significantly between Newland and Bricknell ward. In Newland, 27.5% of people do not speak
33 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, pp. 165 34 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, pp. 153
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English as the first language, whereas in Bricknell this is just 5.4%.35 The demands on ward councillors for
language based resources must be taken into consideration, as indeed must calls for discretionary
budgets. By merging the wards, this would put further and mixed demands on the councillor for the Wyke
Ward, adding added pressures and not promoting effective local government. Instead, keeping the wards
separate would allow discretionary resources for language based services to be targeted more effectively,
promoting effective local government, and reducing the social tensions that can come when money is
spent on these matters.
RELIGION
For the sake of completion we also attach this – an area where the divergence is seemingly less.
Religion breakdown of residents of Hull’s wards36
Religion Newland % Bricknell %
Christian 47.9 54.7
No Religion 37.2 31.7
TIPPING
People’s sense of stakeholder engagement with and within their local community is not only
measured by their property tenure but also how they respect and interact with their environment – or
how others see the local environs. A recent Report to Wyke Area Committee37, monitoring Waste and
refuse matters, shews this in stark relief.
35 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, pp. 157 36 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, pp. 163 37 Report presented in June 2017
Figure 13.1 – Incidences of fly‐tipping across Wyke
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In Figure 13.1, it can be seen that Bricknell, again, has no reported incidents of fly‐tipping and yet
it is the Ward with the greatest amount of open space. Paradoxically the Ward with the least open space
is the Ward with the most reports. This is highlighted in Figure 13.2 where we have overlaid simplified
Ward boundaries in yellow:
Now clearly fly‐tipping does not just happen in spaces which nobody can see, there is a lot of
sense in fly‐tipping within an area nobody is engaged in enough to “twitch the net curtains” and there is
enough pre‐existing litter rather akin to Edgar Allen Poe’s letter hidden in plain sight.38
Studying our casework files for the last two years we see we have had one reported incident of
fly‐tipping and that was at the junction of land where all three Wards conjoin and it was debateable if it
was in Bricknell Ward, we thought it was Newland but a Bricknell resident mentioned it to us so we sorted
it.
Not all incidents are initially reported to ward members however so, in the interests of the full‐
picture, the Nolan Principles, and not hood‐winking the LGBCE we obtained the figures from the call‐
centre for reported incidents of fly‐tipping. Across the whole of Wyke: 350 for Avenue, 573 for Newland
and 36 for Bricknell during the period between 10 viii 2016 and 9 viii 2016. This can be represented across
the City in Figure 14, overleaf.
38 The Purloined Letter, 1844.
Figure 13.2 – Incidences of flytipping across Wyke, with
ward boundaries highlighted
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RUBBISH
As mentioned in the fly‐tipping section, there is much to commend the idea of “hiding something
in plain sight”. Perhaps we may turn to that point and the duty to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects
the interests and identities of local communities? In Newland Ward there is an extensive and severe
problem of rubbish in the streets as well as the sustained and systematic dumping of furniture, bags of
rubbish, and other random items in bulk on very many points off Newland Avenue that are covered by
the Facebook group called “Newland Avenue its rubbish” where citizens are uniting to bring pressure for
action so long has this been going on. The very fact that there is a Facebook page, “Newland Avenue its
Figure 14 – Incidences of flytipping across Hull’s wards
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rubbish”39 and one for Goddard Avenue40 doing much the same for the pre‐WW1, increasingly rented
portion of Goddard says much but emphatically does not say that the problem is caused by local residents
or all the local residents.. Two different levels of investment in an area producing two different senses of
“belonging” mean that a council must be flexible and capable of offering different solutions. Indeed, at
the moment that is what happens – the Newland members regularly fund “bring out your rubbish” days
where they hire a skip and residents fill it. The funding for “bring out your rubbish days” comes from local
funds, and in Bricknell Ward we have not only not done it we have never been asked to do it. While some
residents of Bricknell may take exception to tax pounds being spent in such a manner (in fact some do)
they are generally relaxed when I point out that money could not be spent on them anyway but there is
a community tension just waiting to happen if the two wards are conjoined which is not promoting
effective local government. The Council as a whole can offer that sense of tailored solutions because
people often have no concept of, because they have no interest in, what is happening far away in the City
but there is no sense of community engagement when disparities of treatment are seen to be cheek‐by‐
jowl.
EDUCATION
West of the City remains largely devoid of Secondary School catchment areas although, when
they existed, Newland Ward was not primarily focused on Kelvin Hall. Kelvin hall is located in the heart
of Bricknell Ward and broadly, served Bricknell Ward and that part of Avenue Ward west of the fountains.
However primary schools still retain catchment areas and the map is reproduced in Figure 15.1
overleaf.
39 The Group description is described on the page as “My parent in‐laws have lived down a quiet side street just off Newland Avenue for close to 50 years. Unfortunately, in recent years they have seen a decline in the Newland area. Wheelie bins are left in the street; footpaths and gutters filled with litter and general household waste; front and back gardens piled with bin bags; back and side passages impassable with fly tipped waste; graffiti; inconsiderate parking that blocks footpaths; overgrown and unkempt gardens; broken fences ... and many other things that have contributed to the general neglect of the area. After seeing my mother in law in particular grow increasing upset, to the point that she is ashamed to have visitors to her house, I decided to create a photographic record of the condition of Newland Avenue and its side streets. To raise awareness of the issues faced by the residents of Newland I created this group. The purpose of this group is not to blame any one community group, nor the Council. It's a community issue that affects the quality of life of all residents. Since creating this group I have been overwhelmed by the response of local residents. It is clear that many people share the same concerns as my mother in‐law and I. Please use this group to add your photos/videos of examples of fly tipping, litter etc. and to voice your concerns. However, please refrain from making comments that may be perceived to be racist or aimed at one particular group. I firmly believe that we can make a difference and improve the quality of life for the residents of Newland. To achieve this we must work together with a common voice. I am working on a plan of action, with details to follow over the summer months. In the meantime, please continue to contribute with your photos and observations. Accessed 12th August 2.15pm 40 https://www.facebook.com/Keep‐Goddard‐Avenue‐Tidy‐238145693055462/ Accessed 12th August 2.17pm
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Figure 15.1 ‐ The black lines represent the school catchment areas, the names are of the Primary School
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Figure 15.2 ‐ In this map the blue line represents Bricknell Ward, which encompasses the entire catchment
area for Appleton primary and, by area makes up 2/3rds of Bricknell Primary catchment area, the
remainder being in Avenue Ward. The yellow line is an approximation of Newland Ward, it serves
Sidmouth and Stepney in its entirety, and the red line is an approximation of Avenue Ward – the map is on
too small a scale for precision to the absolute street except in Bricknell which has sensible boundaries.
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Newland residents send their children to entirely different primary schools to Bricknell residents,
as can be seen in Figure 15.2 where we have overlaid the ward boundaries.
Of course, there will be exceptions based on family connections or parental needs but the picture
could not be clearer. The gulf in educational standards is not so great at Primary School level as it can be
at Secondary but at the moment effective governance is provided by schools which are still local schools.
It is not immediately clear to us the benefits of merging the 1930’s school‐building at Sidmouth, with the
two essentially more modern builds in the ward. Whilst the LA increasingly becomes removed from
education we still bear a lot of responsibility for the structures and we would eb the last to say any of the
schools mentioned are in a poor way but there is little community benefit in the proposed apportionment
of schools (although, in this context, that is an especially strong argument about Beverley and Sculcoates
Ward). We tend to prefer a plurality of ward to school catchment areas rather than grouping too many
in the one area.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCES
If we are to look at effective local government then that must include not only the ability to focus
like a laser‐beam on problems and issues by wards that promote effective local government because the
wards ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities. That
the wards are even seen differently by the Council in its local funding formula where 70% of the weighting
is afforded to population, 7% to unemployment, 6% to disability, 7% to benefits, and HIMOs 2%,41 is clear
evidence that local governance sees them as different constructs.
The two‐member Newland Ward gets significantly more than the two‐member Bricknell Ward,
and, despite a 70% weighting on population and, despite Avenue Ward having one more councillor
equating to approximately 50% more population, Newland still tops the table for council funding in Wyke
Area which means by those criteria it is indeed a ward which is more disadvantaged. That an accountant
could merge the baseline figures, or indeed that the base‐line figures could be altered, is not in dispute.
What is contended here is that if such a merger took place what is the efficacy of a system where the
greater demand will just be limited to one part of the disparate Wyke Ward? It simply is not a way to
promote effective local government when the demands for one community already exceed the funding
available and so any increase in expenditure will be expected in the “former Newland” Ward and the
relatively small sum the former Bricknell Ward gets will largely vanish. Put crudely, those that pay in will
see little back – and whilst those “that have” undoubtedly accept, and sometimes embrace, their
obligation to those less fortunate than themselves it is not unreasonable to expect to see some benefit
for, and from, their taxes.
41 This and the data to the table below contained in an e‐mail to all Members from Bruce Fisher in the Council’s Treasury sent on 28th February 2017 at 9.09am ‐ a copy available on request.
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The point about taxation is key to the point about how to secure and promote effective local
government. The general points about taxation where some pay in far more than they get out, and some
take out more than they put in are well known and the national consensus is generally accepted. However,
Bricknell Ward is one of the few wards in Hull which is a net contributor to such of local taxation as is
raised locally. Apart from Beverley Ward no other ward is proposed for merging with such a disconnected
and disparate ward: Avenue, Holderness, Boothferry, Pickering, and Kingswood retain their financial base
and are therefore easy for national government to assess given the still high preponderance of the ward
base as a statistical unit by HMG. Labour made reference42 to the needs of the communities at the
southern end of the proposed Beverley and Sculcoates Ward becoming in danger of marginalisation with
the preponderance of the social hegemony of the rest of the ward, and we do feel there is a very real risk
of that as the coarser politician tends to pander to their own electoral base rather than doing what is
Right. In the proposed Wyke Ward there is also a social mis‐match being proposed and the same potential
risk applies. As a Group, we tend to think the needs of the Bricknell residents will be overlooked in a need
to address the problems of the Newland end but we do not disagree with the Students Union that it could
as easily go the other way and peripatetic students be ignored in favour of regularly voting residents. It
simply is not good governance and whilst Beverley Ward is a proposal from the Liberal Democrats and
therefore open to suggestions of a political fix it has to be wondered why the LGBCE would come up with
such a social and taxation based.
LOCAL ECONOMY
There is a very real divergence between the two wards on economic matters as can be seen in the
segmentation map, Figure 16, overleaf.
42 In their response to the LGBCE proposals from January.
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It does not seem to us that to remove some 2/3rd of “segment J” from the 1/3rd they have been
affiliated to and share an affinity with just to “bond” with a community that has a different orientation
meets the obligation to ensure that the pattern of wards reflects the interests and identities of local
communities. Equally nor is it clear how, the divergence will lead to a balanced view being taken about
how the disparate communities now united with each other with internal tensions within the ward
community will help promote effective local government.
The economy of both wards sees an industrial estate at the westernmost part of the current
Bricknell Ward and the eastern most part of the current Newland ward, although the latter is due to go
to Beverley and Sculcoates Ward under the new proposals. The whole situation as proposed would eb a
disaster for the promotion of effective local government. Although workers do arrive from elsewhere
the employment in the Bricknell industrial area is still drawn from the local area. The estate is vibrant and
largely from the 1930s onwards when the area was still farmland. Newland has a far more diverse range
of challenges in what is currently it’s industrial area and which follows on seamlessly from Myton being
the industrial development of the C19. Newland’s industrial area is still full of businesses, and of an
equally diverse range from household names to “under the arches” (or in this case nowadays “part of a
warehouse” businesses. However, there are major problems to be addressed – the River Hull
Figure 16 – Customer segmentation map, focusing on the Wyke Area
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embankments are long past their Victorian best, some buildings are past their usefulness, the road access
is far too narrow for the modern era, and the River Hull itself is not an exceptional business aid at the
moment. In a Newland Ward still quite tied by employment issues to that area, and lacking diverse social
base so very much an area where there is an acceptance that “intervention” may be needed (along with
neighbouring Myton Ward), the industrial area gets attention and features in some degree of any planning
in the City. The coarser politician may well just abandon it since there are no votes directly there, but it
cannot be entirely ignored and indeed is not – with a special Wyke Area meeting imminent to “spitball”
ideas for regeneration, a regeneration that can lever in funds because of the economic indicators of
Newland Ward itself.
To put the industrial estate in Beverley and Southcoates as a consequence of an unwanted and
arguably un‐needed expansion south is to do a double dis‐service to the industrial area and its natural
hinterland (that part of Newland Ward from the River to Beverley Road). The Industrial area gets tacked
into a largely affluent residential area from itself to the City boundary and the economic indicators for the
ward become so slewed that channelling in certain funding streams becomes more challenging and
limiting. The housing hinterland of the area will have the problem of getting on the radar because the
word Beverley (whether as the nearby town or the ward) carries with it local connotations of being, locally,
“up‐market”43. Although, clearly, facts are facts and cases can be made wherever this area lies the truth
is the hardest thing in Local Government is getting “the system” to believe that “it” is a problem. Once
local government accept something is a problem the machine creaks into action, of some sort, but to tie
a hand behind the back does nobody any favours in the never‐ending pugilistic bouts with (mainly)
treasuries. So that would be the western half of the Newland Ward residents fearing they will be
marginalised and ignored by being in with the Bricknell residents (themselves convinced they will be
ignored in favour of those Newland residents), and the eastern end marginalised by a dominant middle‐
class residential voting block at the northern end of their new ward. We divide one ward, a community
of need, by tacking it onto two residential and largely suburban style wards? We hesitate to use a Marxian
analysis here but we know what they would say about “workers of the ward being disunited” and the
Roman maxim of divide et impera has some validity too as a possible interpretation. We simply cannot
see how it helps promote effective local government if local proposals do not ensure that the pattern of
wards reflects the interests and identities of local communities.
Taking this a step further Central Government recognized the importance of community cohesion
when they realized too many Wards were designed in a way they did not tell the full story. Lower‐layer
Super Output Area (LSOA) were designed to improve the reporting of small area statistics being built up
from groups of output areas (OA). The 2011 census was the last census for which we have data and, even
emerging from a desire to maintain stability as far as possible the LSOAs created from the 2001 Census
continued to exist unless a significant population change occurred between 2001 and 2011 and that
population change breached household minimum and maximum thresholds. Even at the most cursory
glance the difference in population density is apparent with two Newland LSOAs the same north‐south
axis as the Bricknell one. The LSOA map, Figure 17, is quite clear across the City:‐
43 We can hear the more modern version of “Is there grass growing between the paving stones” level of argument even now!
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Whilst LSOAs do not inherently cross ward boundaries, it is clear from even a glance at the
supporting data that there is no harmony across the most obvious boundary which we could loosely call
NWDA and NWDE with the adjacent one in Bricknell Ward which, contains Newland Park and just four
other major streets – see Figure 18:
Figure 18 ‐ with the blue
lines representing the size
of the Bricknell LSOA which
corresponds with the north‐
south axis of two LSOAs in
Newland – represented by
two different shades of
orange
Figure 17: Map of the Lower Layer Super Output Areas across Hull
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However, the LGBCE also seem to have created a sort of administrative tension here because their
Ward proposals ignore the hard data of the LSOA map where, under their new proposals the area in red,
highlighted in Figure 19 will span two Wards. Again what is proposed can be resolved given the high calibre
of Civil Servants in this country, and it may keep the ONS and others engaged for a while resolving the
lines on the map, re‐defining new communities, but is this really the best use of public funds? Should the
declining public sector be focused more on outcomes than process?
In this regard, if our own proposals for how to sort out the University/Orchard Park/Beverley
Ward area, either the completely numbers based one or the one about the in‐built significant error in the
numbers that will impact well before the next scheduled review are rejected this map does seem to lead
to some support for an earlier Labour Group proposal. The Labour Group in their previous proposals did
hint at support for a “J” shaped Beverley Ward and we too would have some support for that based on
these figures.
LAW AND ORDER
S17 of the Crime and Disorder Act requires us all charged with the public weal to have an
obligation to consider the impacts of our actions, or inactions, on Crime and disorder. For some years
now, and to be wholly truthful, for reasons we cannot be absolutely certain of44 Bricknell has been the
44 We do know we have used delegated ward funds for street‐light improvement, gating off alleyways, crime initiatives with the police and other community initiatives without slapping cameras everywhere. However, the reason politics is a social science to study, and an art to practice, is precisely because it is not scientific. Actions may
Figure 19 ‐ A
map shewing
how an LSOA
community is
broken up
under the
LGBCE
proposals
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lowest crime‐ward in the City. The statistics are appended below in Figure 20, with Bricknell and Newland
highlighted for ease of reference.45
As can be seen Bricknell had 508 crimes reported last year whereas Newland was some three
times more at 1541. Policing in Hull is carried out with some regard to Ward boundaries although the
operational location of this policy is not always followed on that basis. Nevertheless all Ward have their
own local policing team and each Area Committee has a Police Inspector and Sergeant who are both, in
common, asupervising those local teams. The Humberside Police website may or may not be up‐to‐date
but we may assume that even if the personalities are changed the establishment is not and the figures
are :‐
Total Crimes Staff excluding Inspector/Sergeant46
Avenue 1755 5
Bricknell 508 3
Newland 1755 6
Whilst it cannot be asserted that all that crime originated from just the part of Newland that will
go into Wyke, whilst we have every confidence the Police will respond to any changed communities, and
whilst we would not like to speculate on the divergence in crime figures, it cannot be said that there will
be no impact. Most reorganisations in the public sector end up with less posts and whilst we are not
aware of member discontent about the personalities involved, the staffing levels at the moment do not
mean that all those in the table above are on Duty and, if on Duty, in the neighbourhood, at the same
be taken, effects may happen, but it cannot always be specifically stipulated that the levers pulled were the sole reason for the ensuing actions. 45 Referenced from a data sheet obtained by council staff in response to a list of my questions. 46 Figures from https://www.humberside.police.uk/teams/avenues https://www.humberside.police.uk/teams/newland https://www.humberside.police.uk/teams/bricknell sites accessed 9:55 6th viii 2017
Figure 20 – Crime by type and by ward across Hull
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time. Bricknell has enough difficulties obtaining police cover now on those “spikes” of behaviour that will
occur at any time in any Ward, and whilst the theory that we will get more police officers with a merger
may have some facile appeal we all know the truth will be that it will be devoted, as currently, to those
areas of highest demand. Evidence based policing is not a problem, it is no worse than evidence‐based
policy making, but at the moment relations between the police and the council remain on good terms,
and as far as we know that holds true for most of the citizenry. However, relations are eased because we
know that when the Bricknell Team is fully deployed, that is all there is to the matter and everyone
probably recognises and accepts there will be priorities. In Bricknell ward there is still a hankering to see
a policeman walk the streets, the demands to deliver that are not that high because there is an acceptance
that the crime rate is low and our team is small. However, once the new and enlarged local Team is put
together then tensions must increase – they are “our” team (whether anyone lives in the former Newland
area or the former Bricknell”) and they will be expected to be seen. At the moment, whilst everyone
knows the Bricknell team is small, it is theirs and people calibrate their expectations of actually seeing a
“bobby on the beat” accordingly. However, a bigger team for “our area” and people will expect to see
“their” bobby more frequently and whilst there will still be some acceptance of priorities there will be a
greater expectation for some slice of the larger cake that is established for an area – not for the small part
to be subsumed into policing the other part, which will be inevitable. The important trade‐off between
people’s desires and their expectations will be altered but in such a manner as to increase
community/police tensions: not helpful under S17 or to general policing by consent.
As well as the inevitable insurance increases in a merger such as this the ability to promote
effective local government will be reduced as many citizens will see what is presented under the facts as
a “huge spike in recorded crime” the first year of the new ward. Then will begin the calls for more policing,
more “anti‐crime measures”, and other budgetary calls which simply cannot be met. It is well and good
us all knowing that crime in “Acacia Avenue” (hopefully) remains low the administrative unit that “Acacia
Avenue” belongs to remains reported as higher. Non‐incumbent politicians blame the incumbents, the
local council blames the government, the media blame everyone, the police disavow any responsibility,
and we all look like fools with the public again turned off by what they see as ever‐increasing tax bills for
ever less service and public servants everywhere are cynically viewed even more.
OTHER AREAS
The LGBCE asked us to supply more data and better evidence, without specifying how that was to
be done. The staffing support arrangements for the Group were not exactly expertly handled within the
organisation, so we have all done the best we could in the time available. We could write more, but we
do not know where the bar is so have no idea if we have cleared it or not. There is a wealth more data
out there, we are sure the LGBCE must have looked at much of it, but we also draw attention to the data
in “HULL JSNA TOOLKIT RELEASE 7: Deprivation and Associated Measures”47 which in 232 pages
overwhelmingly demonstrates again the divergence between the Bricknell and the Newland communities.
The beauty of public life in this country, and the quality of public service, is the overwhelming amount of
data on so many diverse topics! However, lines have to be drawn and we are conscious that production
47 Hull JSNA Toolkit, Demography and Demographics, June 2017, available on request from Hull City Council
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of this document has taken a week of most of the day and into the early evening so we draw the line in
gratitude for the chance to be heard despite the lack of timely help from the home team. We acknowledge
the help we did finally receive, and the speed which it was found, which vindicated our suggestion we had
one member of staff seconded to us for a full day to mine the information.
DERRINGHAM In what has to be one of the most heartfelt but delightfully understated paragraphs in the LGBCE
proposals, paragraph 98, there is little that can or need be said other than that we agree as much now as we did then and with probably the same relief!
Total agreement.
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CONCLUSION
We welcome this further iteration from the LGBCE who, we appreciate have taken a more
proportionate view across the City than we have. We hope we may be forgiven for focussing on that part
of the City we have served for several decades, it is an area and a community we know better than
elsewhere and can supply a higher level of evidence as was hinted by the LGBCE. We hope we have met
that challenge. It cannot be said often enough that we knew this was the route we wanted to take and
we feel very disappointed this document has not reached the high levels we wanted to had we had more
time, but we hope and trust that we have continued to set a reasonable bar in our exchanges with the
LGBCE, and we have used evidence and footnoted our sources so we can be held to account.
We have welcomed the professionalism of the LGBCE and hope that nothing we have written
suggests otherwise. Where we have disagreed we have done so from a basis of a sincere conviction that
other factors weigh more. Nevertheless, we have continued to strive for a consensus and to avoid an
adversarial position where opposition is taken merely for the sake of it. Where the LGBCE are right we
have not hesitated to say so, and yet again we feel we have agreed with more than we do not. It is
inevitable, in a tight jig‐saw, that to disagree with one part of one area may well impact on another piece
of it – truly “no man is an island, centre unto himself, we are all part of the whole”. Nevertheless, since
proposals can result in, at a few strokes of the pen, reducing a plurality that has existed, we are right to
focus in depth on a narrower area of the City than some areas warrant. We do not mean to suggest the
citizens of Derringham (who occupied barely seven lines of this submission) are in any way less worthy of
attention than the citizens of Bricknell: it is just a caser that where you agree why waste time and words
saying so?
We have tried to edge towards a consensus, and are more than willing to meet with anyone to do
so. It may not be the standard operating procedure of the LGBCE, and it may indeed be excluded, however
should it be possible we want to extend that offer. There must be some pressure for a solution if we are
so close to all‐out elections on 2018 but we urge caution. A hasty solution, that has not the validity and
support on the ground, could imperil the governance of a northern City emerging from years of structural
economic realignment. We salute the LGBCE for re‐consulting ‐ it reflects that overwhelming desire for
getting things right that characterises public life in the UK. If more meetings are needed, if a consensus is
imminent, or should the LGBCE continue to find some good ideas put to them, then we urge further delay.
Harold Macmillan was wont to channel WS Gilbert and remark, “Quiet calm deliberation disentangles
every knot” and whilst lacking the excitement of the young Alexander sorting the Gordian knot it has much
to commend it. We urge that we get it right, or as right as possible, rather than surrender to an arbitrary
measure of time which will heap obloquy on those of us who try to build a better tomorrow (and by that
we do not just mean politicians but anyone and everyone who sticks their head above the parapet to help
others). The solution proposed now will cast a shadow down the years and we have only to think of the
impetuosity of Mountbatten and the consequences of that hasty and imperfect solution to realise just
how bad things can be when time is put before Right and community.
The guiding lodestar for this exercise has been community first and foremost, and we have tried
to make the numbers match that expression as closely as possible and we make no bones of that. As a
rather American “motivational speaker – it was the eighties after all – said to the new cohort of 1983
“Congratulations! You’ve joined the people game” and yes that is what we do – this is about people.
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People as they are, a community they feel at ease with, but generally are tolerant of others so long as that
tolerance is reciprocated. We have tried to weight those community issues and are sure that so have the
LGBCE although we have “shewn your working out” rather more than they have. We are conscious that
when in public life there is not always a right and a wrong answer, indeed that there often is an answer
that lies somewhere between the two. However, we are often guided by Citrine48 that the obligation is
higher on those that wish to change things and they should be sure the evidence is higher. We recognise
the need for change according to the rules of warding, but we still think that the less change the better if
we are to look for the smoothest transition in public service and the most effective delivery of outcomes,
especially in an era of declining resources. As a result, we have often placed the greater weight on the
status quo when two factors (or more) seem to have a similar weight, but that also reflects the general
innate desire for stability in the public as well.
We have not approached this work from an overtly partisan standpoint. The Conservative and
Unionist Party may well be the second most voted Party in the City now, which it was not at the start of
the process, but we cannot claim an omniscience across the City, and it is clear from the lack of evidence
that nor can our fellow‐opposition members in the Liberal Democrat party who couldn’t have been much
more blatantly sectarian. Nevertheless, we have not hesitated to agree with the Liberal Democrats when
the evidence, usually not supplied by them, suggests they are right.
Equally we disagree with Labour by the mere definition they are the governing Party and therefore
must be the ones seen making the mistakes. True to our beliefs however, we have agreed with Labour
when the facts also seem to support them. That is the definition of objective honesty, an adherence to
the facts whosoever highlights them and we hope that we have shewn a willingness to work towards an
objective consensus whilst recognising, ultimately, the LGBCE can proceed without one. If this time round
we have drawn fewer lines on a map, if this time we have concentrated on supplying data rather than
drawing those lines, then it is partly because there was a clear invitation form the LGBCE to do so, and we
thought the clear data presentation would help the LGBCE experts to, if they are so‐minded, take on‐
board any ideas and filter them through their expertise. We apologise for not following through as much
as we would have liked but the conditions are what they are.
Therefore, we commend this to the Commissioners, and apologise for any imperfections which
we stand ready to answer and assist with should they be needed.
48 Sir Walter Citrine, who codified the generally accepted rules and procedures of meetings and assumptions underpinning them for the benefit of the nascent Labour Party. In his book, ABC of Chairmanship, Citrine laid down that when faced with a casting vote, the Chairman should vote for the Status Quo unless the case for change was overwhelming and compelling.
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APPENDIX 1 – Secondary School Catchment Areas