Community Councils in Metropolitan Districts

[ilerda]

Playing around with the polling district tool on Boundary Assistant has brought back an idea I had a few years ago regarding local democracy in large metropolitan districts.

When I moved from a small Warwickshire village to the inner suburbs of Sheffield, one notable difference was the lack of truly local political involvement in the community. There were a few plant pots sponsored by the ward councillors from their discretionary grant, but there was no organisation responsible for making sure that the needs of the neighbourhood were being looked after.

Sure we had 3 city councillors, but they covered a wide and diverse area, the boundaries of which had been drawn somewhat arbitrarily with more regard to numbers than community cohesion. And there were only 3 to look after the needs of more than 15,000 residents. 

There is often a lack of civic identity in metropolitan districts too as towns and villages that feel rather separate from the main town or city are forced to sit unhappily under their name and control.

Instead of pretending that all democracy below the district level can be adequately undertaken at the ward level, why do we not follow the example of Wales and set up community councils representing individual neighbourhoods in our metropolitan areas?

I know it is possible for parishes to be formed within metropolitan districts, but this is done in a very haphazard way and relies on the willingness of the principal authority to play along. Instead we could mandate metropolitan districts to consult and come up with a plan for neighbourhood councils, with a strong level of input from residents to make sure the boundaries accurately represent what they see as their community.

And given this is the boundaries section, I've included below my ideas for how this could work in the Sheffield City Council area.

[ilerda]

I also set myself some parameters, thinking the ideal population for each would be between 5,000 and 20,000 residents. I fudged this in BA to a minimum of 3,500 electors and a maximum of 17,500 (based on 2015 data in order to use the polling districts function).


1 Stocksbridge 10168 Yes
2 Bradfield and Oughtibridge 7151 Yes
3 Hillsborough 15584 Yes
4 Stannington 9556 Yes
5 Walkley 10107 Yes
6 Upperthorpe 8064 Yes
7 Crookes 13892 Yes
8 Fulwood 11305 Yes
9 Botanicals 4590 Yes
10 Broomhill 9639 Yes
11 City Centre 5238 Yes
12 Highfield and Sharrow 7084 Yes
13 Dore and Totley 12127 Yes
14 Greystones 6439 Yes
15 Parkhead 4062 Yes
16 Millhouses 8491 Yes
17 Nether Edge 10362 Yes
18 Beauchief and Greenhill 9873 Yes
19 Norton 5442 Yes
20 Woodseats 11345 Yes
21 Hemsworth 4889 Yes
22 Heeley 10201 Yes
23 Arbourthorne 7404 Yes
24 Manor Castle 10518 Yes
25 Gleadless 16206 Yes
26 Birley 8970 Yes
27 Richmond 6109 Yes
28 Darnall 12273 Yes
29 Owlthorpe 8169 Yes
30 Beighton 8010 Yes
31 Woodhouse 7880 Yes
32 Handsworth 7726 Yes
33 Mosborough 10338 Yes
34 Burngreave 5412 Yes
35 Shirecliffe 4838 Yes
36 Fox Hill 3934 Yes
37 Southey Green 5904 Yes
38 Longley 6776 Yes
39 Firth Park 9531 Yes
40 Brightside and Wincobank 6178 Yes
41 Shiregreen 7398 Yes
42 Wordsworth 5677 Yes
43 Grenoside 4816 Yes
44 Ecclesfield 3725 Yes
45 Chapeltown 10598 Yes
46 High Green 7431 Yes

[J.G.Harston]

Most metropolitcal councils do already have parish councils in the areas they absorbed in 1974. Sheffield has Stocksbridge Town Council, Ecclesfield Parish Council and Bradfield Parish Council.

I've always thought Dore and Beighton are natural lumps of geography that would naturally fit having parish councils, both areas absorbed recently(ish) by Sheffield. Other areas are more dubious as Sheffield itself has expanded over the boundary into the area rather than annexing a whole existing community in one go.

[greenchristian]

In some cases natural communities in urban areas can actually be larger than existing wards. So Earlsdon in Coventry would have to be arbitrarily divided in order to get a community council that's smaller than the current council wards.

[ilerda]

Aug 10, 2020 19:22:45 GMT greenchristian said:

In some cases natural communities in urban areas can actually be larger than existing wards. So Earlsdon in Coventry would have to be arbitrarily divided in order to get a community council that's smaller than the current council wards.

Yes that’s very true, which is why I set my upper limit around 20,000. There are certainly a number of places in Sheffield that I would say are ward sized and also natural communities. I’m by no means saying communities would have to be smaller than existing wards, but I think they deserve more representation than just 3 city councillors.

With Earlsdon though (I went to school near there), a lot of the areas in the ward aren’t part of Earlsdon proper, so could probably be swapped out for other more naturally fitting areas to keep it in the vaguely correct population bracket.

[greenchristian]

Aug 10, 2020 19:36:28 GMT ilerda said:

Aug 10, 2020 19:22:45 GMT greenchristian said:

In some cases natural communities in urban areas can actually be larger than existing wards. So Earlsdon in Coventry would have to be arbitrarily divided in order to get a community council that's smaller than the current council wards.

Yes that’s very true, which is why I set my upper limit around 20,000. There are certainly a number of places in Sheffield that I would say are ward sized and also natural communities. I’m by no means saying communities would have to be smaller than existing wards, but I think they deserve more representation than just 3 city councillors.

With Earlsdon though (I went to school near there), a lot of the areas in the ward aren’t part of Earlsdon proper, so could probably be swapped out for other more naturally fitting areas to keep it in the vaguely correct population bracket.

I've not run the numbers but even doing that you'll probably still end up with an area that's larger in population than the current ward. Though likely not to the extent that it would exceed the 20,000 limit you suggest. But there probably are urban areas out there where the largest areas would exceed that limit. That doesn't mean your idea is a bad one, though.

[owainsutton]

Aug 10, 2020 18:56:37 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Most metropolitcal councils do already have parish councils in the areas they absorbed in 1974. Sheffield has Stocksbridge Town Council, Ecclesfield Parish Council and Bradfield Parish Council.

They hardly have lots of active ones, though?

In Trafford, we only have Dunham, Warburton, Partington & Carrington. All in one rural portion of the borough, and all within two wards.

Manchester has one, Ringway.

[owainsutton]

Aug 10, 2020 19:36:28 GMT ilerda said:

Aug 10, 2020 19:22:45 GMT greenchristian said:

In some cases natural communities in urban areas can actually be larger than existing wards. So Earlsdon in Coventry would have to be arbitrarily divided in order to get a community council that's smaller than the current council wards.

Yes that’s very true, which is why I set my upper limit around 20,000. There are certainly a number of places in Sheffield that I would say are ward sized and also natural communities. I’m by no means saying communities would have to be smaller than existing wards, but I think they deserve more representation than just 3 city councillors.

With Earlsdon though (I went to school near there), a lot of the areas in the ward aren’t part of Earlsdon proper, so could probably be swapped out for other more naturally fitting areas to keep it in the vaguely correct population bracket.

My immediate solution here is to note that Sheffield's wards are ridiculously large. A shift to a mix of one/two/three-member wards might be appropriate, as happened with Birmingham and Bristol.

In places that have sensible-sized metropolitan borough wards, around 2k households per councillor, the idea of community councils sounds more working with a couple of other wards, rather than divvying them up.

[Defenestrated Fipplebox]

Do we need parish councils on all areas of cities though, wouldn't they just step on other community leading organisations in some areas?

Where these Organisations don't exist there may be a case.

[andrewteale]

One English metropolis has gone down the route of establishing parish councils to cover the entire urban area: that's Milton Keynes. In population terms some of MK's parishes are very large (West Bletchley is one of the largest parishes in England, with a population over 22,000), bot most are rather small. It would be interesting to hear how that works.

[bjornhattan]

Aug 10, 2020 20:52:28 GMT andrewteale said:

One English metropolis has gone down the route of establishing parish councils to cover the entire urban area: that's Milton Keynes. In population terms some of MK's parishes are very large (West Bletchley is one of the largest parishes in England, with a population over 22,000), bot most are rather small. It would be interesting to hear how that works.

Swindon is another large-ish place which has a similar set up. Though I'm not sure how well they function - Central Swindon South has a population of 60,000, and includes an extreme diversity of communities. It incorporates the town centre itself, the very ethnically diverse terraces just east of it, the pleasant streets with their commuters that ascend the hill south of the town centre, the suburban centre of Old Town, and even the rural fringes of the town to the south. I can't see how that's a cohesive unit which represents a common community, but someone with local knowledge may know differently.

[Khunanup]

We had one for Southsea in Portsmouth (bizarre boundaries, didn't include much of Southsea because the legislation of the Blair government set a population cap) that was do popular it was abolished via a local referendum where 2/3s voted to get rid of it.

In densely packed urban areas, ward boundaries are arbitrary enough without trying to shoehorn in 'community' councils which, in said entirely urban areas, just appear to exist to add a bit to people's council tax.

In rural/semi-rural areas that's a completely different matter.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I should declare an interest, since the levels of my electoral ambition have met the levels of my electoral competence and I'm a parish councillor.

I'm not entirely convinced that there's actually a need for a lot of parishes to exist.

I think the parish council I sit on has a reason to exist, but that's primarily because it has taken on a set of services and responsibilities from the district council that the local community do actually have some interest in the effective provision thereof - you can argue about whether in an ideal we ought to run the local museum, but given that the district council doesn't want to pay for it, somebody has to to ensure continued provision.

But I think that for most parishes that do not provide such services, it's unclear that they couldn't be replaced by voluntarism - frankly, the very few people who want to get involved are the same people who will bother their district/county councils about things anyway, the office just provides them with a route to being taken slightly more seriously in doing this.

I think there may be some value in having a bottom level of local government with few responsibilities but which does get consulted on most things, but I suspect the more appropriate level for that is something resembling the old RDCs than civil parishes (and in urban areas, area committees are a decent model that should probably exist more widely.)

[yellowperil]

Aug 10, 2020 22:50:33 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I should declare an interest, since the levels of my electoral ambition have met the levels of my electoral competence and I'm a parish councillor.

I'm not entirely convinced that there's actually a need for a lot of parishes to exist.

I think the parish council I sit on has a reason to exist, but that's primarily because it has taken on a set of services and responsibilities from the district council that the local community do actually have some interest in the effective provision thereof - you can argue about whether in an ideal we ought to run the local museum, but given that the district council doesn't want to pay for it, somebody has to to ensure continued provision.

But I think that for most parishes that do not provide such services, it's unclear that they couldn't be replaced by voluntarism - frankly, the very few people who want to get involved are the same people who will bother their district/county councils about things anyway, the office just provides them with a route to being taken slightly more seriously in doing this.

I think there may be some value in having a bottom level of local government with few responsibilities but which does get consulted on most things, but I suspect the more appropriate level for that is something resembling the old RDCs than civil parishes (and in urban areas, area committees are a decent model that should probably exist more widely.)

Agree with most of that. I have never been a parish councillor, but when I was a district councillor I found it very useful to attend the two parish councils in my ward each month to get a feel for how the locals felt about things ( while being careful to talk to other people to get the feel how the outsiders felt about their parish council!). Obviously, it will vary widely from area to area what is an appropriate forum, but in my area I don't think replacing parishes with something like old district councils would work- self-contained communities are too small for that.

[John Chanin]

Living in an urban area a number of local busibodies tried to set up a parish council. They got as far as having a local referendum. Since no-one wanted to pay extra money (albeit a small sum) to feed the vanity of local busibodies the referendum was defeated by more than 3 to 1, with a surprisigly high turnout. Good result.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Aug 11, 2020 6:30:47 GMT yellowperil said:

Aug 10, 2020 22:50:33 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I should declare an interest, since the levels of my electoral ambition have met the levels of my electoral competence and I'm a parish councillor.

I'm not entirely convinced that there's actually a need for a lot of parishes to exist.

I think the parish council I sit on has a reason to exist, but that's primarily because it has taken on a set of services and responsibilities from the district council that the local community do actually have some interest in the effective provision thereof - you can argue about whether in an ideal we ought to run the local museum, but given that the district council doesn't want to pay for it, somebody has to to ensure continued provision.

But I think that for most parishes that do not provide such services, it's unclear that they couldn't be replaced by voluntarism - frankly, the very few people who want to get involved are the same people who will bother their district/county councils about things anyway, the office just provides them with a route to being taken slightly more seriously in doing this.

I think there may be some value in having a bottom level of local government with few responsibilities but which does get consulted on most things, but I suspect the more appropriate level for that is something resembling the old RDCs than civil parishes (and in urban areas, area committees are a decent model that should probably exist more widely.)

Agree with most of that. I have never been a parish councillor, but when I was a district councillor I found it very useful to attend the two parish councils in my ward each month to get a feel for how the locals felt about things ( while being careful to talk to other people to get the feel how the outsiders felt about their parish council!). Obviously, it will vary widely from area to area what is an appropriate forum, but in my area I don't think replacing parishes with something like old district councils would work- self-contained communities are too small for that.

I agree most rural communities are significantly smaller than the RDC level, but generally they're also too small for much to be done at that level and the interests of the various communities aren't radically different from one another (and where they are, it's probably helpful for there to be a forum for this to be debated.) I was thinking of it as a compromise of the smallest level at which you can realistically assign priorities whilst also being able to be accessible to anybody interested.

[rivers10]

I take a similar view to that expressed earlier, i just don't understand the obsession of community/parish councils by some, more often than not those who are normally quite wary of local government and are generally supportive of successive national governments drives to strip local authorities of any real power

Dont get me wrong I'm a big supporter of municipal government and its potential but even fully fledged local authorities in this country are toothless institutions essentially relegated to glorified rubbish collectors, parish councils are an even bigger waste of time generally consisting of little more than an opportunity for some local busybody to go on a taxpayer subsidised rant re a planning application that spoils their view.

Hence I dont personally see what good would come from extending them across all our major cities. Might it work if they and the local authorities above them have some real power? Maybe but as it stands it would just be an expensive gimmick

[yellowperil]

Aug 11, 2020 9:15:57 GMT rivers10 said:

I take a similar view to that expressed earlier, i just don't understand the obsession of community/parish councils by some, more often than not those who are normally quite wary of local government and are generally supportive of successive national governments drives to strip local authorities of any real power

Dont get me wrong I'm a big supporter of municipal government and its potential but even fully fleged local authorities in this country are toothless institutions essentially relegated to glorified rubbish collectors, parish councils are an even bigger waste of time generally consisting of little more than an opportunity for some local busybody to go on a taxpayer subsidised rant re a planning application that spoils their view.

Hence I dont personally see what good would come from extending them across all our major cities. Might it work if they and the local authorities above them have some real power? Maybe but as it stands it would just be an expensive gimmick

I for one am not obsessed with community /parish councils, but generally think they are to be welcomed and encouraged to work. I certainly don't fit your characterisation of someone wary of local government and supportive of central government drives to strip, etc, quite the contrary. I am also clear eyed enough to know there are some appallingly bad councils at this level, but then there are appallingly bad areas of governance at every level. Not least at Westminster.  On planning rants on NIMBY grounds, you are going to get that anyway, presumably your objection would be that "taxpayer's  money" is being spent on it. In my experience frighteningly little money, and much of that might go on training, which if done well   might actually help to get a more informed approach, better understanding of planning law, etc.

[J.G.Harston]

Aug 10, 2020 20:21:59 GMT owainsutton said:

Aug 10, 2020 18:56:37 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Most metropolitcal councils do already have parish councils in the areas they absorbed in 1974. Sheffield has Stocksbridge Town Council, Ecclesfield Parish Council and Bradfield Parish Council.

They hardly have lots of active ones, though?

In Trafford, we only have Dunham, Warburton, Partington & Carrington. All in one rural portion of the borough, and all within two wards.

Manchester has one, Ringway.

How much countryside did Manchester annex in 1974? Almost all metropolitan parish councils are what were absorbed in 1974. Prior to that a local council expanding its area would extinguish the existing councils in the area it took over.

[owainsutton]

Aug 11, 2020 19:39:55 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Aug 10, 2020 20:21:59 GMT owainsutton said:

They hardly have lots of active ones, though?

In Trafford, we only have Dunham, Warburton, Partington & Carrington. All in one rural portion of the borough, and all within two wards.

Manchester has one, Ringway.

How much countryside did Manchester annex in 1974? Almost all metropolitan parish councils are what were absorbed in 1974. Prior to that a local council expanding its area would extinguish the existing councils in the area it took over.

That makes sense: these parishes were all in Bucklow Rural District, whereas the rest of the borough was formed from municipal boroughs and urban districts.

It means that Trafford does have quite a big chunk of countryside, including a large estate now in National Trust ownership. Most of it is in two wards, Bowdon and Bucklow St Martin: www.trafforddatalab.io/accessible_graphics/resident_population_2018.html

The only area added in 1974 to the existing extent of Manchester was Ringway, so that the airport was within Greater Manchester. Wythenshawe had been taken over in the 1930s for urban expansion.