It was recently announced that 26 councillors in Exeter and Norwich have lost their seats following a High Court decision over unitary status.
As the BBC reported:
Mr Justice Ouseley last month quashed a Labour government decision to allow the cities to take over county council powers and now members must stand down.
Each council lost 13 councillors and was ordered to pay legal costs.
The 26 councillors were due to stand for re-election in May but had been granted extensions in office as part of provisional arrangements for unitary status.
The judge has now ruled the by-elections must take place to maintain legality.
Leader of Exeter Council, Adrian Fullam (Liberal Democrat) said:
I know that many people will be bitterly disappointed by the announcement – but at least it now seems we have an end to the uncertainty.
We can move forward and plan ahead, looking to strengthen Exeter’s position within a continuing two-tier local government system.
We will need to look carefully at how we manage our budget for the coming year, against a background of the expected severe cuts in public finances.
Now Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Payne, who won his seat in a by-election last May, has spoken of his anger at the decision:
From the Exeter Express and Echo:
I believe that the local election on May 6 was legitimate and had democratic integrity. The people of Pennsylvania and Stoke Hill, of which I am one, came out in good faith and voted.
This had nothing to do with the ongoing discussions about the rightness or wrongness of the unitary bid, which I consider to be more about national party politics than the interests of local people.
It is difficult to understand and to accept that having been elected I am now told that I am no longer a city councillor.
I had begun to develop good working relationships with other councillors, of all parties, and with the city council staff. I hope to continue this as I hope to be selected by the local Liberal Democrat group and to stand for re-election.
I am angry that my neighbours and friends who voted in good faith are being denied their elected voice.
At a time when we have to manage our finances carefully it seems ridiculous to spend more money on an election in Pennsylvania that has already taken place.
Exeter City Council is now submitting its application for emergency elections.
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11 Comments
This is a slightly nutty situation. And the whole unitary decision-making process was flawed in several ways.
The MP for Exeter, Ben Bradshaw, lays the blame on Devon County Council (was Conservative, now LibDem) and on the Coalition.
Whatever, the upshot is that (once the legal wrangling is sorted), it’s likely that Exeter will have to fund an extra election at a daft time of year, and pay a substantial part of the legal costs for a decision that was made by Parliament.
That Tim Payne should be turfed out of office despite a stunning by-election gain on May 6 also seems perverse.
Sorry, that should have been “Devon County Council (was LibDem, now Conservative)” My mind was heading down a different sentence construction altogether!
Any chance of the sitting ex-councillors being returned unopposed? Or is a sensible non-aggretion pact with the other parties an Alliance coalition too far?
I think this comes under the heading Sӣ$ happens, seams a bit of a farce but ther goes. I hope some provision for central funding for cost or reimbersments can be made.
be interesting to see the results.
This is a daft situation and it reflects rather badly on the Lib Dems who have supported cancellation of unitary status in Government and some of whose councillors in Exeter were, alone amongst the parties, vocal in their opposition to unitary status, despite it having strong public support. In pursuing this matter in the High Court (which was surely unnecessary in view of Government commitments to reverse the creation of unitaries) Devon County Council has acted spitefully and contrary to the interests of Exeter council tax payers.
Exonian – I read the same point you made of Devon County Council pursuing this through the High Court, and the “spitefulness” of this, in the Express and Echo. Am I right in thinking that this action was commenced before the election, when it was not known whether the Unitary bid would continue or not? If that was the case, do you believe there was any way of stopping the action once the election was over and the new Govt had made its intentions plain? I think there was no doubt, as almost admitted by the outgoing Govt, that the bid still suffered significant financial downsides for the population, and it seemed a very perverse decision by Labour to allow it to go ahead.
If the Conservatives in the Lords had voted with the Lib Dems against the orders creating unitaries on the existing district boundaries for two cities that clearly on their current boundaires were not viable unitaries this could have been avoided.
David – It doesn’t look likely.
So much for Lib Dem localism – The vast majority of people, businesses and organisations in Exeter supported unitary status, and as for it being “unviable”, it would be just as viable as many other unitary councils of a similar or smaller size elsewhere in the country. Plus of course the fact that Exeter was unitary before 1974 – so its not as if it is impossible.
John – You may well be right. A pity there was no local plebiscite for us to know what the people of Exeter actually wanted.
What’s also interesting has been how the reactions of the three main parties have split…
From what I can tell, Labour has been mostly pro unitary at all levels. But for the Conservatives and LibDems:
– Exeter councillors have been largely pro unitary;
– the Parliamentary candidates were more sceptical;
– Devon County councillors and South West MPs have been solidly against;
– and people outside the South West have been (not inexplicably) largely indifferent.
I don’t think there’s a contradiction here: a commitment to localism (particularly different granularities of “local”) means that there will be different views at different levels.
What I think we should all agree on, however, is that the decision-making process has gained nothing from being managed by the Boundary Committee and has cost huge amounts of time, money and energy. Spending just a small fraction of that time, money and energy on a democratic decision-making process in the first place could have reaped real rewards, whichever way the decision went.
I have lost confidence with the Conservative party, would not be able to support Labour with the leaders they have, Lib Dem’s are liable to have a opportunity Govern if they can show they are competent to do so, the extreme right / left of politics has shown us their true colours. Can the Lib Dem’s rise to this commitment, David