Hopes that the final report, into the boundaries of wards used in local elections in York, might stimulate local democracy in the City have been dashed.
click for larger map
The Boundary Commission have confirmed most of their original proposals with the only significant change being the merging of Heslington Village with Fulford.
The University is added to the Hull Road Ward and given an additional Councillor.
The Westfield Ward boundaries remain as they are now.
It seems to us that, Fulford excepted, the Boundary Commission have ignored local views and given weight only to representations made by the Labour party.
The opportunity to create smaller wards has been missed meaning that the chance to re-establish links between the community and their elected representatives has been lost.
It is only a few days since the Council admitted that most residents did not even know the names of their local Councillors.
The suggestions, that distinct communities like Foxwood should have a single identified representative, are ignored in the Commissions final report
The Boundary Commission – prompted by the vested interests of existing Councillors – have also declined to introduce annual elections (where a ¼ of the Council would submit themselves for re-election each year).
The advantage of annual accountability is that it acts as a brake on extreme policies (we doubt if Labour would have closed Lendal Bridge if they faced a ballot box verdict next May) and ensures that there are at least some experienced members in the Council chamber.
So 1/10 for the Boundary Commission.
Labour will be happy as the new boundaries may give them extra seats in the Hull Road and Clifton areas, but mostly it will be the Russell Brand style sceptics who will no doubt portray minimum change proposals like these as further evidence of a broken political system.
They may be right.