Adventures in local elections, Ashford Borough 1981-2005

[yellowperil]

I am looking for something to fill my odd moments now I have stopped doing the current  by-election details and I need something where the deadlines of looming weekly elections won't trouble me. I am thinking of telling, in some detail, my years of taking part in elections within the date and space limits specified, the ones where I was the candidate and the ones where I was campaign organiser or agent (about a quarter of my life, as this month I enter my eightieth year). I intend to give the results, of course, but they will generally be available already in other places, so what I will be trying to do more is to include my take on what actually happened,including as much of the human interest stories as I can. I expect to include not only the Borough elections but all elections (parish, Borough,County,Westminster, Euros) happening within that area and over those years. 

I hope this may have an interest beyond the geographical confines I will impose on myself,and I would certainly invite comments from those from other areas with parallel experiences, and especially perhaps from other political view points than SDP/LibDem,which would certainly be interesting.

[tonyhill]

This sounds rather like something Martin Kyrle has done with regard to Southampton and Eastleigh - so far it has taken him three books and he's only up to the early 1980s!

[yellowperil]

Apr 2, 2018 10:43:22 GMT tonyhill said:

This sounds rather like something Martin Kyrle has done with regard to Southampton and Eastleigh - so far it has taken him three books and he's only up to the early 1980s!

Yes I had thought of writing a book but don't think the time is available! Plus if I put chunks of it on here, I hope it can be a two-way process rather than a monologue. And I wouldn't claim to be another Martin Kyrle - this will be more a footslogger's diary.

[yellowperil]

Some Background-Ashford Borough

In 1981 the Borough of Ashford was relatively new, having been created in in 1974 by the merger of the old Ashford UDC (growing fast,but still only about 27,000 people), with the ancient Borough of Tenterden (about 7,000) and 3 smallish RDCs , East Ashford, West Ashford,and Tenterden,to bring the total population to about 57,000. Rapid growth thereafter has brought that up to a current population of about 130,000. In 1981 the rural hinterland could still easily outpoll the urban heart.

It is handy for purposes of political analysis that at this stage the Borough was coterminous with the parliamentary constituency. The constituency was solidly Tory because of that rural hinterland - originally it had had included a much wider area including  Romney Marsh and then had its brief flirtation with Liberalism in the thirties (actually a Liberal seat 1929-31) over Tithe Reform, but apart from that had always enjoyed a comfortable Conservative majority. The MP in my early years in Ashford (the sixties and early seventies) was Bill Deedes, later  of Dear Bill fame, and after 1974 he had given way to Keith Speed. The last parliamentary result before we enter our period of study was
K Speed(Con)    26,224  55.6%
A Gilbert (Lab)  12,586  26.7%
A Wainman (Lib) 7631  16.2%
K McKilliam (NF)    678   1.4%
1979 of course was not generally a good year for the Liberals,and Ashford was no exception. The previous high tide for Liberalism locally had been the February 1974 election when Clive Dennis  had taken second place to Bill Deedes, with 13,314 votes and 28.2 %, but they had already dropped back behind Labour in the October election that year.  

These were times when I was a floating voter and for the life of me I cannot at this distance remember in which of these elections I voted Labour and which Liberal -it was the sort of time when I made my mind up as I went into the polling booth. In the seventies I did at least meet all the candidates,even the NF candidate in 1979. We did have some direct involvement with both of the Liberal candidates of this era though- before we moved from Willesborough to Pluckley in 1976, Clive Dennis had been both our district and county councillor and Eileen (aka Mrs Peril) had been closely involved with Clive in a campaign to save  Willesborough Windmill (eventually successful), while I had invited Alison Wainman to speak to my students at an event in my college. Alison was of course to go on from her unsuccessful venture into Ashford parliamentary politics to become the sole Lib Dem to date to lead Kent County Council.

my next post will focus on the local government situation in Ashford Borough at the time, the state of the parties locally just before the advent of the SDP,and something of the socio-economic background.

[yellowperil]

Some background -Ashford Borough ( continued)

The creators of the new Borough had put together the UDC which was socially, economically and politically quite mixed,with a rural hinterland which was overwhelmingly conservative at national level but largely apolitical at local level- the Borough of Tenterden  and the three RDCs had generally eschewed party political labels, though mostly people would know most independents were Tories at heart,a few certainly weren't and the general view was at this level it didn't matter.  

Ashford town was different. There were essentially three different towns with different histories, societies and economies.There was the original small country market town- probably smaller than Tenterden,but the livestock market one of the most significant in southern England. When I first moved to Ashford in 1963, the town had quite a different vibe on market day as the farmers in their tweeds poured in. Carlton I think will remember that world. Then there was the railway town, with its big junction and substantial railway works-dating back to the 1840s - a somewhat smaller version of Crewe or Swindon, but very much part of  that family. At the heart of that was Newtown, the industrial suburb originally called Alfred after the Duke of Edinburgh, who lived nearby, but railway area spread over several wards.And then there was the Expanding Town,the London overspill estates of the fifties and sixties.

The different political complexions of the different parts of the Borough are shown very well by the six county divisions that made up the Borough in those days. South Ashford was the most firmly working-class part and could generally (though not invariably ) be expected to go Labour. Ashford South East,including Newtown and the formerly separate parish of Willesborough, was more mixed and was the Liberal heartland.  Ashford North was even more mixed and included the posher parts of the urban area, much of it in the formerly separate parish of Kennington, but also including the town centre, was most likely to balance out as Tory, giving one Ashford town division each to each of the three main parties.  But then all 3 rural divisions,Rural West (the former RDC), Rural East (also a former RDC), and Tenterden (combining the former Borough with the former RDC) were all far more reliably Conservative.

I will illustrate the points above by quoting the 1981 county results,the first elections on the new divisions quite as described above,so they show what I was saying well. Prediction is a much easier game when operated by hindsight.

KCC elections 1981
Ashford North
M Ashby (Con)            1961   46.9%
C Paul Burnham (Lib) 1127   27.0%
J Howlett (Lab)              903   21.6%
G Knight (Eco)                122     2.9%
R Lockwood (NF)             69     1.7%

Ashford South
ACoombes(Lab)              2014   56.9%
G Holloway (Lib)             1011   28.6%
R Kerly (Con)                      448  12.7%
F Vaughan (NF)                     67  1.9%

Ashford South East
C. Dennis (Lib)                  2331   53.4%
G Inglis (Con)                    1166   26.7%
J Ackerley (Lab)                  716   16.4%     
K McKilliam (NF)                   39     0.9%

Ashford Rural West
J Grugeon (Con)                 2253   53.2%
S Osborne (Lib)                   1287   30.4%
I McMurchie (Lab)               627    14.8%
D Batt (NF)                               65      1.5%

Ashford Rural East
G Thompson (Con)              2598   64.5%
N.Wilson (Lab)                       703    17.4%
C Andrew Porter (Ecol)         635   15.8%
R. Taylor ( NF)                           94      2.3%

Tenterden
C Carr  (Con)                          3492  74.1%
M.Honeysett (Lab)               1121  23.8 %
I Nobbs(NF)                               98      2.1%

Comparing the aggregate county results for Ashford in 1981 with the general election figures 2 years earlier, suggests that there is a swing away from the Conservatives and towards both Labour and Liberal parties in those first two years of the Thatcher administration. On the other hand it may be just a product of the differential turnout between the general election and the counties. There are signs that all parties are only really trying in those divisions they expect to win, and the Liberals only bother to field a candidate in 4 of the 6 divisions. I would have been very critical of the Libs for this- I felt there only real interest was getting Clive Dennis re-elected, in spite of quite respectable second places in three more divisions. Of course you should target where you need to win, but it was poor not to field candidates in Rural East or Tenterden, while they were winning South East sufficiently comfortably that a greater effort in North, probably, might have been interesting. I suspect that Dr  Paul Burnham, a university  geology lecturer at Wye College, was left largely to his own devices.  

I will look at the borough wards in the next post and group them under the county division labels as at this stage there was no blurring of the boundaries- something that was to come later.

[carlton43]

Apr 3, 2018 9:53:53 GMT yellowperil said:

Some background -Ashford Borough ( continued)

The creators of the new Borough had put together the UDC which was socially, economically and politically quite mixed,with a rural hinterland which was overwhelmingly conservative at national level but largely apolitical at local level- the Borough of Tenterden  and the three RDCs had generally eschewed party political labels, though mostly people would know most independents were Tories at heart,a few certainly weren't and the general view was at this level it didn't matter.  

Ashford town was different. There were essentially three different towns with different histories, societies and economies.There was the original small country market town- probably smaller than Tenterden,but the livestock market one of the most significant in southern England. When I first moved to Ashford in 1963, the town had quite a different vibe on market day as the farmers in their tweeds poured in. Carlton I think will remember that world. Then there was the railway town, with its big junction and substantial railway works-dating back to the 1840s - a somewhat smaller version of Crewe or Swindon, but very much part of  that family. At the heart of that was Newtown,Y the industrial suburb originally called Alfred after the Duke of Edinburgh, who lived nearby, but railway area spread over several wards.And then there wasthe Expanding Town,the Lodon overspill estates of the fifties and sixties.

tbc

Yes I do remember that market as my Father was the NFU man in their hut and I was left in care of the WI hut for tea and buns. Later I commuted to the town by steam from Maidstone and then lived in town and in out of town villages, standing for election in Newtown or Willesborough.

[yellowperil]

The Ashford Borough Wards in 1981 by County division - Ashford North

The North division included 6 single-member wards and one double, so returned 8 members to the relatively new Borough wards- the most recent election, in 1979, had been the second outing on these ward boundaries. 4 single member wards covered the former village of Kennington, of which Kennington Lees contained most of the old village, Spearpoint was mostly the newer developments lying between Kennington and Willesborough to the east, while Bockhanger and Bybrook filled the gaps which had previously existed between Kennington and Ashford town 4 wto the south. The M20 motorway now mostly defined the break between Kennington and Ashford, so by now these 4 wards could just be regarded as the major part of Ashford town lying north of the motorway.  KL and Spearpoint were fairly smart areas by and large, mostly owner -occupied, while Bybrook and especially Bockhanger a bit more mixed, the latter including quite a large London -overspill sixties council estate.

The rest of Ashford North include the two-member ward of Ashford Central, and the single-member wards of Queens and Warren.  the central ward was something of a misnomer as it stretched out westwards into some quite rural areas. The town centre polling district was not quite populous enough to form a ward in its own right, so it was added on to the suburbs stretching west in Repton and Godinton to make up the double-hander. Queens and Warren were the posher bits of Ashford town- much of Queens the Edwardian era suburb with some fairly grand villas, but also some Edwardian-era terraces, while Warren was rather newer but mostly private housing from the thirties through to the sixties.

Politically, this was the most divided area in Ashford town- tending to Conservative almost as  a default, but occasional bursts of Liberal activity in odd corners, and with quite a strong showing by a local independent-minded residents group. Labour were generally weak in this area, with some glimmers of hope for them in Bockhanger and in the town centre. As we enter the time we are examining, there were (elected 1979)  4 Tory councillors, 3 Residents and a lone Liberal - Tony Edwards, a local campaigner and a magistrate, who had rather surprisingly defeated the incumbent Tory councillor  Marian Martin (maybe not that surprising- in 1976 Mrs Martin had then defeated the sitting Liberal Vivienne Dockery).

Borough Election Results 1979: Ashford North
Bockhanger
M Walton (Con)       817  53.3%
C Madgett (Lab)       377  24.6%
M Holloway(Lib)      339  22.1%

Bybrook
P Blair-Richley (Res)  605  51.4%
C Bracey (Con)           573  48.6%

Central (2)
S.Ford (Con)                  644  43.4%
E Clapp (Con)                533
C Ross-Steward (Res)  441  29.7%
G Charles (Lab)             399 26.9%
B Niven (Lab)                369

Kennington Lees 
A Edwards (LIb)              445  54.1%  
M Martin (Con)              377 45.9%

Queens
H Lavender (Res)            521  63.1%
S East (Con)                     305  36.9%

Spearpoint
G Worrall  (Res)              606  61.4%
F Lebihan (Con)              281  38.6%

Warren
B Moorman (Con)            705   71.7%
B Medd-Sygrove (Lib)      278   28.3%

[yellowperil]

Ashford Borough Council Wards in 1981  by County division: Ashford South

We now move to what was at this point an almost undisputed Labour stronghold -Ashford South, at this point returning 9 Labour councillors  out of 9. There were 5 single member wards and the two doubles in Singleton and Stanhope, and all Labour. There was a mixture of some Victorian terraces, private housing especially bungalows much of that interwar, and mostly substantial council estates, some interwar and some from the fifties and sixties. This covered the 5 single-member wards of Brookfield, Hampden, Musgrove, Woolreeds and Victoria Park- though the latter was rather more varied with some larger villas in the area close to the park itself.  Singleton was rather different, be further out from the town with rather newer housing mostly owner-occupied (the ward included two polling districts, Singleton Farm and Singleton Village, the latter slightly later than the former, that lay within the boundaries of the old UDC - (a third Singleton area was over that border and included in Great Chart parish and therefore in  Rural West). Stanhope was different again  -outside the old UDC, it was a very large London overspill local authority estate, built in one go in the parish of Kingsnorth, and then given parish status in its own right- the only part of the Ashford urban area with its own parish council.

I said Labour's control was almost undisputed, at this point,  but the Tories would certainly be eyeing up Victoria Park , and Singleton looked like a 3-way marginal, one where the Liberals particularly were hopeful of advancing, and the two sitting Labour councillors were nervously looking over their shoulders. As we shall see in due course that was to have significance when we come to the history of the Alliance. Even Stanhope ,which on the face of it looked the most solidly Labour ward of all, was to prove to have an interesting political future.

Borough Council Elections 1979-Ashford South

Brookfield 
R Ackerley  (Lab)    787  70.2%
H Carter (Con)        354  29.8%

Hampden 
D Crawley (Lab)      418   63.0%
W Hopkins (Lib)      139   21.0%
E Lidbury (Con)       106    16.0%

Musgrove
R Lewis (Lab)            716   71.8%
L Lidbury (Con)         281  28.2%

Singleton(2)
I McMurchie (Lab)     325  37.5%
J Tugwell (Lab)            289  
R Smith (Lib)               271  31.3%
D Leavey (Con)           270  31.2%   
A Mason (Lib)             248   
G Thompson               236 

Stanhope (2)
L Lawrie (Lab)            1098  69.1%
J Ackersley (Lab)        1078
G Prince (Con)              491  30.9%
B Dale (Con)                  476

Victoria Park
T Wilkinson (Lab)          469  52.5%
R Kerly  (Con)                 424  47.5%

Woolreeds
M Wiggins (Lab)             469   59.3%
A Coleman (Lib)              206   23.4%
J Pryor (Con)                    205   23.3%

[Deleted]

yellowperil, this thread is exceptionally good, thank you for it.

[yellowperil]

Apr 4, 2018 23:05:17 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

yellowperil , this thread is exceptionally good, thank you for it.

thanks for the encouragement.  I was beginning to think this is beginning to look like book length (This is some way off getting to my real theme)
and I was beginning to wonder if I was just going to be talking to myself after a while...

[tonyhill]

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and prone to nostalgia, but what struck me was your description of the area in the 1960s. Towns in those days, and probably on into the early 80s when the economy of this country changed irrevocably, had specific local functions and character. As you say, market days were different: I used to go to the local market in Haywards Heath as a teenager (Haywards Heath maybe being an exception to towns having function and character); Winchester and Alton changed their character on market days - many of the pubs in Alton closed when the market did, as they have in so many places (livestock markets that is - blokes with loud voices selling carrots are still around). Most of the breweries have gone, so you no longer get off a train to the smell of hops, and of course every high street is the same and everywhere within commuting distance of London is primarily somewhere for people to sleep and go to the supermarket at weekends. This is the sort of thing one can write about interminably and has little relevance to Ashford, so I'll stop!

[yellowperil]

Apr 5, 2018 6:11:02 GMT tonyhill said:

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and prone to nostalgia, but what struck me was your description of the area in the 1960s. Towns in those days, and probably on into the early 80s when the economy of this country changed irrevocably, had specific local functions and character. As you say, market days were different: I used to go to the local market in Haywards Heath as a teenager (Haywards Heath maybe being an exception to towns having function and character); Winchester and Alton changed their character on market days - many of the pubs in Alton closed when the market did, as they have in so many places (livestock markets that is - blokes with loud voices selling carrots are still around). Most of the breweries have gone, so you no longer get off a train to the smell of hops, and of course every high street is the same and everywhere within commuting distance of London is primarily somewhere for people to sleep and go to the supermarket at weekends. This is the sort of thing one can write about interminably and has little relevance to Ashford, so I'll stop!

not at all - as I said in my intro, I wanted to use my case of Ashford to look at the wider scenes of which that was an exemplar. It is exactly those sort of comparisons I would encourage folk to make, especially  on the more political issues when I get past the scene setting and start talking about e.g. the rise of the SDP and tensions within the Alliance, or the rise and fall of the LibDems locally. 

So I will go on writing interminably about it - it's my therapy.

[carlton43]

Apr 5, 2018 6:11:02 GMT tonyhill said:

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and prone to nostalgia, but what struck me was your description of the area in the 1960s. Towns in those days, and probably on into the early 80s when the economy of this country changed irrevocably, had specific local functions and character. As you say, market days were different: I used to go to the local market in Haywards Heath as a teenager (Haywards Heath maybe being an exception to towns having function and character); Winchester and Alton changed their character on market days - many of the pubs in Alton closed when the market did, as they have in so many places (livestock markets that is - blokes with loud voices selling carrots are still around). Most of the breweries have gone, so you no longer get off a train to the smell of hops, and of course every high street is the same and everywhere within commuting distance of London is primarily somewhere for people to sleep and go to the supermarket at weekends. This is the sort of thing one can write about interminably and has little relevance to Ashford, so I'll stop!

That is all good stuff Tony.  I know those feelings.

At Ashford there was a distinct character to the town governed by the prominence of the market, the railway, the REME works and the embedded Quaker families who ran the sweet factory and the wheel works and were involved in professions and retail. The railway changed a huge amount in building an important set of junctions and a loco works. Then again with HSR an international station (now sadly hardly international) and an influx of French avoiders of bureaucracy. It missed out on the relocation of a large part of Rolls Royce but gained many new businesses like Proprietary Perfumes, Letraset, plastic pipe factory and large food factories along with elements of London overspill and increased London commuting. I and YP lived through much of that probably with equal mixed feelings?

[yellowperil]

Apr 5, 2018 6:38:23 GMT carlton43 said:

Apr 5, 2018 6:11:02 GMT tonyhill said:

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and prone to nostalgia, but what struck me was your description of the area in the 1960s. Towns in those days, and probably on into the early 80s when the economy of this country changed irrevocably, had specific local functions and character. As you say, market days were different: I used to go to the local market in Haywards Heath as a teenager (Haywards Heath maybe being an exception to towns having function and character); Winchester and Alton changed their character on market days - many of the pubs in Alton closed when the market did, as they have in so many places (livestock markets that is - blokes with loud voices selling carrots are still around). Most of the breweries have gone, so you no longer get off a train to the smell of hops, and of course every high street is the same and everywhere within commuting distance of London is primarily somewhere for people to sleep and go to the supermarket at weekends. This is the sort of thing one can write about interminably and has little relevance to Ashford, so I'll stop!

That is all good stuff Tony.  I know those feelings.

At Ashford there was a distinct character to the town governed by the prominence of the market, the railway, the REME works and the embedded Quaker families who ran the sweet factory and the wheel works and were involved in professions and retail. The railway changed a huge amount in building an important set of junctions and a loco works. Then again with HSR an international station (now sadly hardly international) and an influx of French avoiders of bureaucracy. It missed out on the relocation of a large part of Rolls Royce but gained many new businesses like Proprietary Perfumes, Letraset, plastic pipe factory and large food factories along with elements of London overspill and increased London commuting. I and YP lived through much of that probably with equal mixed feelings?

yes indeed, and in due course I'll get on to the "embedded Quaker families", with particular reference to one general election.

[yellowperil]

The Ashford Borough wards in 1981 by county division: Ashford South -East

Most of this division was co-terminous with the old parish of Willesborough, more so than with North division and Kennington.  Willesborough had got caught up in the nineteenth century railway growth and had fused with Ashford- indeed the boundary between the two was mostly the Ashford-Canterbury rail line. However the South Willesborough ward included Newtown, which was actually in Ashford, not Willesborough, and though there were 4 North Willesborough wards ( Willesborough Lees, Windmill, Waterside, and Twelve Acres) there needed to be two more wards on the wrong side of the railway tracks (probably expressing a prejudice here coming from living in Willesborough from 1963 to 1976):Henwood and Eastmead, to make up the county numbers.  Henwood might have been west of the railway, but actually felt much like Willesborough, but Eastmead was also west of the East Stour river, and really was part of South Ashford, much more like the neighbouring South wards of Hampden and Victoria Park.

The whole area was quite mixed, with areas of Victorian terraces nearer to, or actually in,  Ashford, local authority housing dominating in Twelve Acres,and newer private estates  largely of fifties/sixties semis dominating Windmill and Willesborough Lees. My Willesborough years were spent in a semi in what became Windmill ward -to make our younger readers blink, the 3-bed semi was erected in 1956 and was £1750 new, we bought it at Christmas 1963 for £3250, and sold it in the spring of 1976 for a cool £10,000.

Politically the Liberals were almost as dominant here as Labour were in South- certainly the 4 straight North Willesborough wards were very strongly Liberal. Henwood was always up for grabs, always changing hands and at this stage Eastmead was still very much part of the South Ashford Labour family. The other odd one was South Willesborough, including Newtown. This was the personal fiefdom  of one Gordon Turner, railway enthusiast,local historian (I am still in posession of a couple of his books) and hugely enthusiastic Liberal politician. But ( how often do we hear this?) Not a Team Player! He had been a member of the liberal group but had fallen out with Clive Dennis, Deryck Weatherall and the other Liberals, and was sitting apart from the Liberal group, somewhat provocatively under the label True Liberal. Clive,Deryck and the others had made too many compromises  and were no longer of the true faith. How many other Liberal groups can claim one of those?

Incidentally, he remained a member of the party nationally and joined the Liberal Democrats on merger and was for years just about the most active member in the party, while continuing to sit in the council as True Liberal. It led many analysts to assume he was a member of the continuing Liberal party, but certainly not - he was a True LD! All the Liberal Democrats had to do to keep him sweet was not to oppose him in South Willesborough, and that always seemed to me an obvious course of action, though not everybody always agreed.

Borough Election results 1979: Ashford South-East

Eastmead
D Madgett (Lab)       610   53.4%
F Newble (Con)        533   46.6%

Henwood 
R Burton (Lib)           504    52.5%
W Gower (Con)        456     47.5%

South Willesborough
G Turner (True Lib)  882     77.2%
F Williams (Con)      157     13.7%
 P Bunce (Ind)          104        9.1%

Twelve Acres
D Weatherall (Lib)   774     76.9%
K Nicholson ( Lab)   151     15.0%
K Katz (Con)                81       8.1%

Waterside
T Golding (Lib)          528      60.0%
L Brittan (Con)          352      40.0%

Willesborough Lees
J Simpson (Lib)          666      57.9%
E Tredwell (Con)       485      42.1%

Windmill
C Dennis (Lib)             972      87.6%
D Puxty (Con)             137      12.4%

Dennis Puxty in Windmill had been my next door neighbour in my days there- nice enough man if somewhat misguided. Much the same could be said about the Tory candidate in South Willesborough. The two candidates in Willesborough Lees: both did stand elsewhere at times with opposite party labels, so the labels were more or less interchangeable!- that has continued to be something of a feature of Willesborough Lees elections.

[Pete Whitehead]

This is a good thread. It might be useful to have a map of the wards from that time for reference purposes s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lgbce/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/8120/ashford-map01_5589-5193__e__.pdf

I can't think of any other town the size of Ashford that has been divided into so many small wards. The extraodinarily monolithic level of support for the Lib Dems (and predecessors) in some of these has always struck me as well

[yellowperil]

Apr 5, 2018 11:52:53 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

This is a good thread. It might be useful to have a map of the wards from that time for reference purposes s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lgbce/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/8120/ashford-map01_5589-5193__e__.pdf

I can't think of any other town the size of Ashford that has been divided into so many small wards. The extraodinarily monolithic level of support for the Lib Dems (and predecessors) in some of these has always struck me as well

Thank you for the comments and the map which I had thought would be useful but hadn't got round to- somebody might enjoy colouring in too!
Yes I think your two points are related, small wards and all-out elections tend to favour individuals who establish themselves and become pretty immovable for a time- that suits the Lib/LD method of working, but also encourages that person to start equating themselves with the ward rather than the party group and to feel invincible -  which leads to schism of which there is a fair bit. 

[Pete Whitehead]

Apr 5, 2018 12:18:39 GMT yellowperil said:

Apr 5, 2018 11:52:53 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

This is a good thread. It might be useful to have a map of the wards from that time for reference purposes s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lgbce/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/8120/ashford-map01_5589-5193__e__.pdf

I can't think of any other town the size of Ashford that has been divided into so many small wards. The extraodinarily monolithic level of support for the Lib Dems (and predecessors) in some of these has always struck me as well

Thank you for the comments and the map which I had thought would be useful but hadn't got round to- somebody might enjoy colouring in too!
Yes I think your two points are related, small wards and all-out elections tend to favour individuals who establish themselves and become pretty immovable for a time- that suits the Lib/LD method of working, but also encourages that person to start equating themselves with the ward rather than the party group and to feel invincible -  which leads to schism of which there is a fair bit. 

I would enjoy that very much. I can create a series and give you the links so you can place them where you want to on the thread

[yellowperil]

Ashford borough council wards by county division: Ashford Rural West

We now turn to the 6  single member wards and one double that makes up the county division lying to the west of Ashford town, and at this point you may realise the Ashford Borough electoral system was designed for the needs of rural areas like this , but then applied equally to the urban area however inappropriate.  The aim in the rural area was probably each village forming a single-member ward, but of course not all villages are a good fit- some like Charing are too big and some like Little Chart are, well, too little, so Charing has to be a double-hander and the smaller villages have to be pasted together.

So, Charing is a 2-member ward but that includes Charing Heath, a satellite village which was a separate polling district.  Bethersden was the one right-size village, so the one single-village one man ward.  Hothfield was doubled with Westwell, Pluckley with Little Chart, Smarden with Egerton, Great Chart with Singleton (the bit not inside Ashford town) and Kingsnorth with Shadoxhurst. Incidentally, Smarden which later was my own ward, was called Smarden at this time and throughout the period right up to 2003, when the name was changed to the ludicrous one of Weald North. On the ElectionsCentre website they have changed the name prematurely- as the ward member I can assure you its an error. I suppose I should be grateful its only my ward name they've got wrong- unlike Gwyn the Griff who has to endure a gender change.

These are all "proper villages" at this time, predominantly agricultural  with a scattering of rural industries, like Pluckley's brickworks. Great Chart and Kingsnorth was the ones nearest to Ashford and beginning to get a bit of urban sprawl within those wards. All the villages were beginning to get a little bit of commuter settlement, but not enough to change their essential character.

Politically all 7 wards were dominated by Conservatives, and remember these elections are coinciding with the general election sweeping Margaret Thatcher to power, but the old RDC streak of a liking for genuine independents was quite strong , so Jo Winnifrith in Charing, Winnie Swaffer in Great Chart , and Reg Harrington in Kingsnorth were well established (Reg incidentally had once been chair of the Ashford Liberal Party, who had resigned over the failure of the party to expel Gordon Turner -ironical as later they were great political buddies). But the default mode was always a Tory member and at this stage it appeared a strong-minded Independent was the only viable alternative option. So the 8 representatives at this point were made up as 5 Tories and 3 Indies.


Borough Council elections 1979 Ashford Rural West
Bethersden
A Tapsell (Con)      949    86.3%
A Howlett (Lab)     103   13.7%

Charing (2)
J Winnifrith (Ind)  1166   64.6%
T Cronin (Con)         638   35.4%
E Crayford (Con)      539   

Great Chart
W Swaffer  (Ind)       324   63.5%
L Stoneham  (Con)   186   36.5%

Hothfield
C Oliver (Con)             625    71.9%
D Hayes (Lab)             244    28.1%

Kingsnorth
R Harrington (Ind)       880    61.8%
J Anderson (Con)         512    38.2%

Pluckley
M Carr(Con)                   562    83.0%
A Tribe (Lab)                   115   17.0%

Smarden
H Hilder (Con)               1058   85.5%
W Chamberlain (Lab)     180   14.5%

personal note- this was now my neck of the woods and a lot of these candidates were my personal friends(regardless of party). I was voting in Pluckley and voted for Alan Tribe, who had actually been a student of mine- this was quite common in this age group and Allen Wells, not yet a councillor but later Labour leader, was another. ex-student. Harold Hilder, later to be leader of the council, had been a personal friend since we first moved to Kent  -his wife was a close colleague of mine.

[yellowperil]

Apr 5, 2018 12:26:41 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Apr 5, 2018 12:18:39 GMT yellowperil said:

Thank you for the comments and the map which I had thought would be useful but hadn't got round to- somebody might enjoy colouring in too!
Yes I think your two points are related, small wards and all-out elections tend to favour individuals who establish themselves and become pretty immovable for a time- that suits the Lib/LD method of working, but also encourages that person to start equating themselves with the ward rather than the party group and to feel invincible -  which leads to schism of which there is a fair bit. 

I would enjoy that very much. I can create a series and give you the links so you can place them where you want to on the thread

That's a wonderful offer. I am getting a bit daunted at the size of the task I've set myself , so any offers to help improve what will be there will be accepted with enthusiasm.