Clause 57
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
2:15 pm
Philip Dunne (Whip, Whips; Ludlow, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Illsley. It is the first time that I have had the opportunity to address the Committee, but I will be brief. I wish to emphasise that the new clause also stands in my name. I draw that to the Committee’s attention because I represent a constituency that has just gone through a transition from a two-tier structure to a unitary tier.
In the process of allocating the new unitary ward boundaries, in one part of my constituency we found ourselves in the extraordinary position of not having a single advocate for a particular two-member division that had been proposed. The proposal appeared from nowhere and was imposed by the Electoral Commission on the communities of Church Stretton and Craven Arms in my constituency. It is one of the relatively few two-member wards in my constituency, and within the county. Those two communities have very little in common. They are united by the A49, which is the only Highways Agency trunk road that passes through the constituency. They are seven miles apart.
The community of Church Stretton nestles in the Switzerland of Shropshire. For those of you who do not know that area, it is as it is described. It has some magnificent hills, which are famous for providing the best views between there and the Urals. Travelling eastwards, one cannot get as good a view as one can from the top of the Long Mynd until one hits the Urals. Yet just to its south, in Craven Arms, nestling on the edge of the area of outstanding natural beauty, people do not benefit from quite such spectacular views, beautiful and attractive as the place is, and there is relatively little that unites the two separate towns. Each has its own town infrastructure, yet they have been lumped together in a single ward. That caused intense frustration at every level in the community, including among those wishing to stand for election to the town councils in the respective areas, as well as a couple of the villages that were lumped in with them.
I have been going on at some length and you have been very indulgent in allowing me do so, Mr. Illsley. However, that example lends emphasis and support to the purpose of the new clause: that if areas are going through the fundamental change of a reorganisation of structure, the views of the people on the ground should carry rather more weight than the views of the bureaucratic organisation many miles away, probably in London, seeking to impose some sort of arithmetic calculation to the considerable distress of the local people affected by it. So I encourage the Minister to consider accepting the new clause when she sums up.