Chiswick Councillors Accuse Hounslow Council of 'Boundary Blunder'

As battle begins to keep 9 seats in the 3 local wards

The nine Conservative Chiswick councillors have accused Hounslow Council of making a blunder in their submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission. Hounslow has denied the claim (see statement below).

The Boundary Commission's is reviewing ward boundaries for the first time in twenty years and had invited submissions from local authorities and the public.

There will be another consultation on a draft recommendations starting on 4 June, with the publication of final recommendations on 29 October. The proposals will not come into effect until after the next local government elections in 2022.

Hounslow Council proposes splitting up the current Brentford ward and dividing it into a new Brentford East and Brentford West ward with five councillors. This would be at the expense of Chiswick, where Hounslow Council proposes that the Homefields ward be represented by two, not three, councillors.

Their reasoning is that because of a predicted population increase of over 45%, due to new housing developments in Brentford, the area needs greater local representation. Some areas of Chiswick, on the other hand, have a predicted decline in population.

The local Conservative Party, which has put forward its own submission where boundaries are redrawn to maintain nine councillors in Chiswick, has now accused Hounslow of getting its facts wrong. It has accused the Council of using completely different population predictions than that used by the Local Government Boundary Commission. Leader of the Chiswick Conservatives, Sam Hearn issued a statement saying:

"The Council’s submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) has in the case of several key wards failed to meet the Boundary Commission’s first and crucial numbers criteria. It is likely that any adjustments that that the Commission decides to make will have an impact on the majority of wards in the Borough. This will result in a radically different boundaries to the ones agreed after many last minute changes at the Borough Council meeting on the 12th March.

"Neither the Council nor the LGBCE are accepting responsibility for this blunder. However, there seems to be general agreement that the Council and the LGBCE have used two different sets of population statistics. The Council when making its submission did not include any information derived from GLA population forecasts of the population for each ward in 2022. The LGBCE has taken these into account, as it always said that it would.

"Huge amounts of time and energy have been expended by Officers and Councillors of both political parties that is now largely wasted. When, in early June, the Commission publishes its own draft proposals for public comments and suggestions it is likely that many residents and councillors will be confused and angry.

"The Conservative Group of Councillors have revised their own submission to the LGBCE to make it fully compliant. Your Councillors will be happy to answer any questions that you might have when the LGBCE draft proposals are published. There are likely to be significant changes to ward boundaries in Chiswick. "

In response to the 'blunder claim' Cllr Steve Curran, Leader of the Council, said: “It is not the case that the Commission has rejected our submission, or that the time we spent in preparing it was wasted. We will have to wait and see whether the Commission’s own proposals are radically different from ours.

“As Cllr Hearn knows, the Review is carried out in four phases, and in Phase 2 we used the 2018 electorate and local information about future development in our submission because they are property-specific, whereas the GLA forecasts are not, which makes it difficult to include them. However, the Commission has decided to use the population projections we used in our Phase 1 submission as the basis for the recommendations it will make in Phase 2, which does include some additional information from the GLA forecasts.

“This means that when considering the proposals, the Commission will make its own assessment of the population of each ward, taking account of the GLA figures, which may result in some changes to the boundaries compared to our proposals. However, the submission that was agreed at Borough Council is just our consultation response, and it’s likely that whatever methodology the Commission chooses to use when assessing the responses, they would not necessarily agree to our suggestions.

“When their draft recommendations are published in early June, there will be another round of consultation and that will be the time to review their suggestions and put forward any changes to the ward boundary proposals before a final decision is made.”

The Boundary Commission's public consultation on ward boundaries ended on 18 March. It has already been agreed the borough will keep its current level of sixty councillors. Hounslow Council's submission sees the creation of an extra ward, from 20 to 21, with eighteen wards represented by three councillors and three wards represented by two.

In terms of the three Chiswick wards, the Council’s plan transfers an area of land from Homefields (the Dukes Meadows area) to Riverside, while reducing the number of councillors in Homefields ward from three to two. The Riverside ward would be extended south of the Kew Bridge Rd to the Victoria Steps - and the ward would retain three councillors.

For Turnham Green to retain its three councillor quota, it is proposed that a small area is transferred from Riverside, moving the boundary from the Great West Road north of Wellesley Rd and west of the M4. This is because at this point the Great West Road is elevated above the local residential properties and so does not form a tangible natural boundary.

Chiswick is expected to have 27,000 voters in 2024. Under the new rules (based on predicted population figures) Chiswick is entitled to no more than eight councillors - a 5% variance is allowed.

The nine Chiswick councillors have come up with their own plan to rejig the ward boundaries to maintain their current level of representation. The Conservative proposals for Chiswick start from the understanding that the estimated populations of all three Chiswick wards falls significantly below the required average of approximately 10,500.

Leader of the Conservatives in Hounslow Council, Sam Hearn said last March , "We believe that there are powerful practical reasons for retaining the current arrangement of three councillors for every ward. The population of the existing Brentford Ward is far too large and there is ample scope to transfer some neighbouring streets from Brentford Ward to the Turnham Green and Chiswick Riverside ward.

"Chiswick Homefields ward can only expand to the west and to achieve this we have proposed transferring some neighbouring streets to this ward from both Turnham Green Ward and Chiswick Riverside Ward. Following this logic Turnham Green and Chiswick Riverside wards must in their turn expand to the west if they are meet the requirement of having approximately 10,500 residents.

"Turnham Green Ward should, we believe, incorporate roads surrounding Gunnersbury Park that are adjacent to that ward’s current boundary. Finally, we propose that Chiswick Riverside should include the new housing developments to be built on Capital Interchange Way that adjoins that ward’s western boundary. The Capital Interchange Way enclave is cut of from the rest of the ward that it is currently in by railway lines, and the new residents (when they arrive) will have no tradition of identifying with the old Brentford Ward.".

The combined projected electorate for 2024 of Chiswick Homefields, Chiswick Riverside and Turnham Green wards will be entitled to 7.25 Councillors according the formula used by the Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBC), meaning an almost certain reduction from the current nine Councillors across Chiswick as a whole.

The Boundary Commission says, "New wards should leave each councillor representing roughly the same number of voters as other councillors elsewhere in the authority. New wards should – as far as possible – reflect community interests and identities, and boundaries should be identifiable.

"Consider transport links, community groups and facilities, natural or physical boundaries, parishes and shared interests. New wards should promote effective and convenient local government. Consider the number of councillors for, the geographic size of, and the links between parts of the ward."

There will be another consultation on a draft recommendations starting on 4 June, with the publication of final recommendations on 29 October. The proposals will not come into effect until after the next local government elections in 2022.

May 15, 2019