Absolutely insane’ plans to redraw town’s electoral boundary blasted

Dozens of people are opposing “absolutely insane” plans to redraw the county electoral boundary in Stroud.

Residents packed the Crown and Sceptre pub on Thursday night (November 30) to discuss the Boundary Commission’s plans to move Trinity to the new County Council division of Bisley and Painswick.

The plans result from the creation of two new Gloucestershire County Council divisions due to population growth in the Gloucester area.

The current proposals being considered by The Boundary Commission would see residents of Painswick being moved from the existing Painswick and Upton division into a newly created Bisley and Painswick division, which will have relatively few residents as it’s a rural area.

And in order to balance out the numbers of in each division across the county, they want to move the boundary so that residents from Trinity would be within the Painswick and Bisley division to make up the numbers there.

This would mean Trinity will be hacked out of the current Stroud Central division and made part of the largely rural Bisley and Painswick division, objectors say.

The plans would mean the end of the current situation where the boundaries of the town council, district and county wards are the same.

Instead, residents and Stroud town council will have to liaise with two county councillors instead of the current one meaning local services would be affected.

Rodda Thomas, landlord of the Crown and Sceptre, who hosted the meeting, said: “It’s absolutely insane. They want to take Trinity away and stick it in Painswick and Bisley.

“The new division they are creating. They want every ward to be the same size. It’s ridiculous. They are not and are never going to be.

“It means the maternity hospital, the parks, loads and loads of amenities are going to be not within Stroud but within Bisley and Painswick. If that happens they are never going to come down here and will never get anything done.

“It’s a ridiculous idea. Loads of people are against it.

“Nobody can understand why they want to do it. Stroud’s footprint is too big apparently and there are about 3,000 people too many in it. Painswick has 2,000 fewer.

But it works really well at the moment. We are in Stroud, in fact they call the road here Old Stroud. Now they are going to take it out to make some number cruncher happy.”
Stroud Town Council has also objected to the plans along with County Councillor David Drew (L, Stroud Central).

He says the move is “ignorant gerrymandering” designed to even out numbers without any consideration being given to the importance of community affiliations.

He said: “It makes no sense and will not benefit the residents of Trinity, who will be represented by a county councillor who will have a huge, mainly rural, area to cover, incorporating as it does seven parish councils and three district council wards.

“I don’t envy the councillor who ends up with this proposed division as it will be a challenge to attend all the various parish meetings effectively, or know the schools intimately.

“It will not make for effective local government. This is a result of the government’s obsession with trying to run representation just around numbers rather than locations, with a one size fits all approach.

“It is not fair that an urban area such as Stroud is being sacrificed to make the numbers up elsewhere in a rural area that Stroud does not identify with in any way.”

Stroud Town Councillor Adrian Oldman (G), whose home ward of Whiteshill is affected by a related proposal to move Whiteshill to a newly created division of Haresfield and Upton, told the meeting that the Boundary Commission had not consulted either the town or district councils about the plans.

He said the short consultation period (the plans were announced in late October, with a deadline of December 11 was “simply unacceptable”.

The Trinity ward district councillor, Lucas Schoemaker (G) also objects.

He says there has been a shocking lack of consultation. “Until they heard about the meeting via local social media, most residents knew nothing about this,” he said.

“And the feedback from the many residents who turned out on a freezing cold Thursday night at short notice shows the strength of feeling about it all.

“Instead of having one county councillor who lives locally and attends local council meetings, we’ll have two county councillors, one of whom will be based miles from Stroud and cannot be expected to understand the issues of this ward.

“The Boundary Commission must remember it is tasked by Government not only to even out numbers but also to give great weight to the local connection.

“What troubles me most is that if this goes ahead people will feel disenfranchised and less engaged and will lose interest in the democratic process and be less likely to bother voting – which is perhaps the intention behind these plans. Is it a coincidence that the residents of Trinity are mainly Labour and Green voters?”

Stroud’s Labour parliamentary candidate Simon Opher said siting Trinity ward, which is essentially central Stroud, with a rural ward is absolutely ridiculous.

“It’s really important for communities that local democracies reflect how a community works. Trinity is part of Stroud, and to remove it, due to some rather random need to keep numbers equal, is exactly the wrong way to align the local district counci,” he said. “I am demanding that this decision is reviewed.”

Pete Kennedy, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Stroud, says he too shares the concerns of many people in Stroud Trinity.

“Ripping Trinity out of Stroud town and tagging it onto Painswick and Bisley doesn’t make any sense.

“These proposals will make it hard for a councillor to meet Trinity’s needs and provide support to residents, especially if it is a Conservative councillor who shares little in common with the people of Trinity.

“The good news is that this is a genuine consultation by the Boundary Commission, so I urge people to make their voices heard by responding to the consultation. This is a battle that can be won.”

Residents who wish to have their say on the proposals can do so here. The consultation ends on December 11.