Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
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Post by Adrian on Nov 10, 2017 11:21:38 GMT
If UAs are necessary, the following seem nicely balanced:
Bournemouth (with Christchurch) 247,000 Poole (with East Dorset) 241,000 Dorset 283,000
I think retaining the separate identities of Bournemouth and Poole would be a boon. Merging them (especially without their hinterland) makes little geographical sense. Why do some people in Poole want to see its historic status dissolved?
Edit: Three counties: Dorset, Poole and Bournemouth, the latter being the Hampshire part of Dorset, plus Kinson:
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peterl
Green
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Post by peterl on Nov 11, 2017 12:03:09 GMT
I'd still like to see Ferndown and West Moors in the Urban Authority and a tidying up of the Poole boundary but in general looks like a reasonable starting point. Trust me, the residents of Ferndown wouldn't (I've been at meetings where this has been discussed).
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Post by greatkingrat on Nov 11, 2017 13:53:53 GMT
Don't tell me they are actually going to call the councils 'Urban Dorset' and 'Rural Dorset' ? Bournemouth Urban District Council and Bournemouth Rural District Council?
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 11, 2017 21:44:53 GMT
If the conurbation authority has "Bournemouth" in the name but does not include all three town's names, there will be blue murder from Christchurch and to a lesser degree Poole. I'm betting it will be something like South East Dorset Council. The rural authority will presumably keep the Dorset brand, with or without the word "county".
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Eastwood
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Post by Eastwood on Nov 12, 2017 11:21:26 GMT
I'd still like to see Ferndown and West Moors in the Urban Authority and a tidying up of the Poole boundary but in general looks like a reasonable starting point. Trust me, the residents of Ferndown wouldn't (I've been at meetings where this has been discussed). Quite probably not. My Ferndown relatives are against it, claiming they have nothing to do with Bournemouth while also being totally dependent on Bournemouth for all their social / medical and shopping needs. Meanwhile my Poole relatives are all in favour of it. I prefer a logical boundary based on actual community ties so for me Ferndown is a suburb of Bournemouth.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Nov 22, 2017 21:29:44 GMT
Trust me, the residents of Ferndown wouldn't (I've been at meetings where this has been discussed). Quite probably not. My Ferndown relatives are against it, claiming they have nothing to do with Bournemouth while also being totally dependent on Bournemouth for all their social / medical and shopping needs. Meanwhile my Poole relatives are all in favour of it. I prefer a logical boundary based on actual community ties so for me Ferndown is a suburb of Bournemouth. Certainly fits with my general theory of local ties; which is that the more outraged an area is about the prospect of being combined with a larger neighbour, the more sense it makes to do so.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Dec 10, 2017 19:30:27 GMT
Updates on the process
Monday night this week will see a meeting of East Dorset District Council to consider withdrawing their objection to the scheme. The Cabinet met on Friday and will be recommending that they do. Purbeck District Council will meet Tuesday night. There is no certainty about what will happen at these meetings, and having looked at the papers it seems both councils sough various assurances on how the new authority will function and for the most part have not been given them. Christchurch is currently holding a Local Advisory Poll which closes on Thursday. A special Full Council has been set for January 2nd, presumably to consider the results. The Dorset Joint Committee looking at arrangements for the new authority on the rural side will be meeting on Wednesday. Amoungst other things, arrangements for a boundary review is set to be discussed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2017 19:39:14 GMT
Updates on the process Monday night this week will see a meeting of East Dorset District Council to consider withdrawing their objection to the scheme. The Cabinet met on Friday and will be recommending that they do. Purbeck District Council will meet Tuesday night. There is no certainty about what will happen at these meetings, and having looked at the papers it seems both councils sough various assurances on how the new authority will function and for the most part have not been given them. Christchurch is currently holding a Local Advisory Poll which closes on Thursday. A special Full Council has been set for January 2nd, presumably to consider the results. The Dorset Joint Committee looking at arrangements for the new authority on the rural side will be meeting on Wednesday. Amoungst other things, arrangements for a boundary review is set to be discussed. I'll be sorry to see West Dorset DC merge, granted it is a parochial Tory dominated council, but it is a lovely part of the County.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Dec 12, 2017 17:00:57 GMT
East Dorset has voted by 14-12 to withdraw their objection. Their Twitter page has some coverage of the debate if anyone is interested in the ins and outs of it, but it was quite contentious and many councillors were still deeply unhappy about the whole scheme.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Dec 13, 2017 10:51:38 GMT
Purbeck voted last night 19-5 to withdraw their objection, making Christchurch the last holdout.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
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Post by Khunanup on Dec 14, 2017 0:28:05 GMT
Purbeck voted last night 19-5 to withdraw their objection, making Christchurch the last holdout. It is so depressing to see locally elected councils being bullied by government and their bigger neighbours through a series of threats and 'inevitability' into 'withdrawing' objections to things that really is not in their best interests and that they don't want. It is of course helped by Conservatives being almost preternaturally spineless ultimately through the fatalism that seems to permeate conservative local government circles (certainly in the Solent region which is where I know them face to face the best). I'm pleased that other than in Weymouth & Portland my party colleagues are opposing the Tory government stitch-up to create grossly large and incoherent unitaries.
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Post by greenhert on Dec 14, 2017 12:51:33 GMT
Purbeck voted last night 19-5 to withdraw their objection, making Christchurch the last holdout. It is so depressing to see locally elected councils being bullied by government and their bigger neighbours through a series of threats and 'inevitability' into 'withdrawing' objections to things that really is not in their best interests and that they don't want. It is of course helped by Conservatives being almost preternaturally spineless ultimately through the fatalism that seems to permeate conservative local government circles (certainly in the Solent region which is where I know them face to face the best). I'm pleased that other than in Weymouth & Portland my party colleagues are opposing the Tory government stitch-up to create grossly large and incoherent unitaries. This is not happening everywhere, though-just in some specific locations usually involving district councils with low populations which are also geographically small (West Somerset and Forest Heath, for example).
Labour started this trend when they approved the unitarisation of the county councils of Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, and Wiltshire, and the break-up of Bedfordshire and Cheshire.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
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Post by Khunanup on Dec 15, 2017 0:05:19 GMT
It is so depressing to see locally elected councils being bullied by government and their bigger neighbours through a series of threats and 'inevitability' into 'withdrawing' objections to things that really is not in their best interests and that they don't want. It is of course helped by Conservatives being almost preternaturally spineless ultimately through the fatalism that seems to permeate conservative local government circles (certainly in the Solent region which is where I know them face to face the best). I'm pleased that other than in Weymouth & Portland my party colleagues are opposing the Tory government stitch-up to create grossly large and incoherent unitaries. This is not happening everywhere, though-just in some specific locations usually involving district councils with low populations which are also geographically small (West Somerset and Forest Heath, for example).
Labour started this trend when they approved the unitarisation of the county councils of Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, and Wiltshire, and the break-up of Bedfordshire and Cheshire.
Really, I wasn't aware.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Dec 15, 2017 0:14:11 GMT
It is so depressing to see locally elected councils being bullied by government and their bigger neighbours through a series of threats and 'inevitability' into 'withdrawing' objections to things that really is not in their best interests and that they don't want. It is of course helped by Conservatives being almost preternaturally spineless ultimately through the fatalism that seems to permeate conservative local government circles (certainly in the Solent region which is where I know them face to face the best). I'm pleased that other than in Weymouth & Portland my party colleagues are opposing the Tory government stitch-up to create grossly large and incoherent unitaries. This is not happening everywhere, though-just in some specific locations usually involving district councils with low populations which are also geographically small (West Somerset and Forest Heath, for example).
Labour started this trend when they approved the unitarisation of the county councils of Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, and Wiltshire, and the break-up of Bedfordshire and Cheshire.
Yes, that proves that there's a case for looking again at the internal borders of the counties (what looked reasonable 45 years ago might not be so sensible nowaday), but outright mergers of existing districts is just a lazy money-saving option. What happened to Bedfordshire and Cheshire I call the 'Berkshire option' because the Conservatives got rid of the County Council there – although they simply turned all the districts into unitary authorities on that occasion instead of combining them. Herefordshire, the Isle of Wight and Rutland were made into unitary counties while the Tories were still in power in the mid-1990s too.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Dec 16, 2017 10:55:24 GMT
I also find it very depressing and sad for democracy. I have never felt so disenfranchised. We now know that the people of Christchurch have voted by a margin of 84% to 16% on a very respectable 53% turnout against the mergers so I doubt Christchurch Council will withdraw their objection. They will be meeting on January 2nd.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Dec 16, 2017 17:08:29 GMT
In tonight's Daily Echo that the Lib Dems on Poole Council are now calling for their own referendum. The vote in Christchurch has stirred up the winds of discontent again.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Jan 3, 2018 12:02:41 GMT
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peterl
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Post by peterl on May 7, 2018 19:20:03 GMT
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Post by andrewp on May 7, 2018 19:27:50 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2018 20:23:20 GMT
There's a lot of opinions thrown around in here, mostly negative. However, a perspective from within the county but outside the conurbation and its environs hasn't been given yet.
First and foremost, I absolutely do not think that everyone in 'Western Dorset' (West, North and Weymouth & Portland) supports the proposals. This is my personal take, but I'd wager the majority in the three mentioned districts broadly agree.
Weymouth and Portland and West Dorset are de facto almost already one. The Weymouth & Portland council offices shut down a couple of years ago, to be replaced by a much smaller annex on the Borough's library. Most services provided by the Borough are run through Dorchester - for example, when I applied for a postal vote lat year, I sent the form to something along the lines of 'Weymouth & Portland Electoral Services, South Walks House, Dorchester' - which is West Dorset's council offices. Not only are the services run together, they're generally the same - the Dorset Waste Partnership being rather notable. It's similar situation with North Dorset - they also run many of their services with Weymouth & Portland and West Dorset, including the Waste Partnership.
The reason for this is because Weymouth & Portland and North Dorset have found themselves without the financial stability to run services.
Now, I can see why perceived centralisation is an issue - but for the Western Dorset authorities, this isn't really an issue. More active councillors in Weymouth can quite easily cycle to meetings in the county town if they wanted. Gillingham, the most distant town in North Dorset, is barely further from Dorchester than Lyme Regis (which already has its council offices in Dorchester for both principal levels). In order to maintain its identity, Weymouth, the only unparished area outside of the SE Dorset conurbation, will get its own town council.
Hopefully that gives some perspective about why I view Weymouth & Portland, West Dorset and North Dorset combining as one unitary is a good idea.
But of course, I'm missing the elephant in the room - the rest of the county! In any case, a Western Dorset unitary would lead to the inevitable collapse of the Dorset County Council - which if nothing else changes, East Dorset, Purbeck and Christchurch would have to become unitary authorities. IIRC the latter two are well under the recommended population minimum for Unitaries, and neither of the three would easily be able to sustain themselves. Hence, Purbeck and East Dorset join the rural unitary, whilst if it must join another council, Christchurch is to be combined with Bournemouth.
This is obviously far from ideal, and the fact that Poole will also be joining up with Bournemouth is also clearly controversial (but ultimately, isn't directly the consequence of the creation of the rural unitary). In my view, two alternatives would be better:
3 Unitary Authorities - a rural Dorset one; a Greater Poole/Poole Bay one encompassing Poole, and surrounding areas as far as Wimborne to the north and Wareham to the south west; and a Bournemouth and Christchurch one with Christchurch being parished.
Rather controversial, but 3 Unitaries - a rural Dorset one, a Bournemouth & Poole one, and a cross-county one consisting of East Dorset, Christchurch and... the New Forest.
I understand the opposition from the east of the county, but I find it frustrating when I see Lib Dem campaigners in Poole share '9 councils against the merger' and the like on Twitter, whilst here in Weymouth & Portland, we extol the benefits of the re-organisation on our campaign literature.
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