The Thorncliffe team

Last week we observed that this is the biggest year of the local electoral cycle. No fewer than 248 councils in England have elections – although none in London, and in 151 the elections are all-out: every councillor is up for re-election. Which of them could change hands? Given the fraught political situation, almost any. But some are worth commenting on.

Most of the metropolitan boroughs have elections but there is not much interest in them this year: Labour controls almost all of them, and may achieve overall majorities in Trafford and Calderdale but none is really likely to change hands.

There are some new ingredients in the mix in the shape of five newly merged councils. The two new unitaries in Dorset have been heavily Conservative but the merger has been controversial and the current council leadership has been criticised (especially in the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council), so may be worth watching. The other three (Somerset West and Taunton, East Suffolk and West Suffolk) are likely to be Conservative.

Highlights among the unitary councils are:

• Bedford: Dave Hodgson, the directly-elected Liberal Democrat mayor, is reliant on personal popularity to keep his position, and needs to finish in the top three to benefit from vote transfers. The council is highly unlikely to have an overall majority.
• Brighton and Hove: Run by a minority Labour administration since 2015, the local party has had an influx of the left and moderate Labour councillors have been deselected. Former council leader Warren Morgan has left to support ‘Change UK’. If Labour keep control, the new council will shift significantly to the left – but the lesson from Haringey in 2018 was that Labour underperformed in similar circumstances.
• Medway: If pro-Brexit voters are not willing to go to the polls to back the Conservatives, it potentially leaves the Conservatives vulnerable in a large authority that voted 64% to leave the EU and where Labour has a good activist base. Medway has been Conservative-run since 2000.
• Peterborough: A council elected by thirds, where two Conservative losses would take it into no overall control. Local political campaigning has been intense because of the prospect of a Parliamentary byelection: the recall petition closes the day before polling day.
• Portsmouth: The Conservatives lost control in 2018 and now appear to be in full retreat, but for the Liberal Democrat to get a majority is out of reach.
• Southend-on-Sea: A disastrous night for the Conservatives would endanger their control. They would need four losses to cede overall control.
• Swindon: Conservative-controlled since 2003, Swindon is now a top Labour target which the party has come close to winning and where they did unexpectedly well in 2018. Local factory closures have been highlighted by Jeremy Corbyn.
• Thurrock: One of the strongest UKIP areas until the local group seceded en masse to form Thurrock Independents, the council has been trending towards the Conservatives recently. Can they make the two gains needed to get an overall majority, or did the chance slip by when Brexit didn’t happen?

In the district councils, there are several heavily leave voting areas which have been politically marginal and where control is uncertain. In Thanet the UK Independence Party actually won a majority in 2015, but the group fell apart partly because its signature policy of reopening Manston Airport proved unachievable. The Conservative minority administration may now regain majority control. Tendring (the district covering Harwich and Clacton) likewise saw a strong UKIP vote but a fracturing group, and the Conservatives attained a majority through defections.

One of Labour’s best chances for gaining control comes in Amber Valley, a marginal area where the Conservatives are defending all but one of the seats up. Only three gains would change the council. A good performance in Gravesham would put Labour back in control there. Worcester is an interesting fight as the Conservatives now have an overall majority but the council constitution requires an all-party administration; if they make more gains, will they change the constitution and take control?

Labour is under pressure in Crawley which normally has elections by thirds but is now all out on new ward boundaries. But there are far more councils with small Conservative majorities where local parties are fretting about their chances of retaining control, including three in Hertfordshire: Welwyn Hatfield, St Albans and North Hertfordshire.

Three Surrey councils are also difficult Conservative defences. Last year’s result in Tandridge makes it very likely the Conservatives will lose control; in Mole Valley a proper Liberal Democrat revival in a district which had a remain lead would easily depose the Conservatives. Elmbridge, although a knife-edge borough, may now be trending the Conservatives’ way.

The key location in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat battle is Winchester, where there is just one seat in it and the Conservative administration has been under heavy criticism. But in Colchester the Conservatives are within one seat of deposing a Liberal Democrat/Labour/Independent coalition that has kept them from power for many years.

There is also something to look for nationally. In the event of large Conservative seat losses and Labour gains (or some combination of the two), it is possible Labour will go ahead of the Conservatives in the Local Government Association’s calculation of ‘proportionality’ which evens up the proportion of councillors to take account of some wards being larger. The Conservatives have been on top since 2004 except for one year in 2014-15; they regained top spot due to gains in the corresponding elections four years ago. Labour are coming from a long way behind but don’t rule it out.

A few weeks after the locals, it will all start again, with the European elections on 23 May – and all local authorities have gone into purdah from last Monday because of this.  Apparently the Brexit Party is leading the polls on that…..

The good news for anyone thinking the UK has too little democracy is that there are going to be two rounds of major elections in May. Everywhere in the UK will elect members to the European Parliament on 23 May – unless by some miracle the PM gets her deal through and cancels the elections – which will be just three weeks after most of England voted for local councillors.

This is not good news for anyone trying to get a decision from local government. The rules of purdah, which stop councils making major decisions and restrict publicity, have already kicked in where there are local elections and will now apply nationwide from Monday. Councillors, as the backbone of their party election campaigning machine, will absent themselves from meetings to prod very reluctant voters to turn out in the largely pointless European elections.

Some committee dates will have to be postponed, and smaller councils will find their electoral officers under severe strain having to cope with a second unexpected authority-wide poll. And don’t even mention the possibility that there may be an early general election soon after…

Local election prospects

This year’s local elections are the round in the cycle where most councils which have all-out elections hold their poll. Increasing number of councils have given up on elections by thirds so now find themselves all up for election in May 2019, a time when British politics is in an exceptionally fraught and uncertain state.

Reports from all over the country suggest that morale is very low – especially among Conservatives who have many councillors defending seats won at the high tide of 2015. Canvassers report a very poor reaction on doorsteps, especially from people opposed to EU membership and who are likely to have voted Conservative in 2015.

The Conservatives are trumpeting that they’ve put up candidates in 96% of the 4600 seats up for election, against 77% by Labour and 55% by the LibDems, but don’t let that enthusiasm fool you – the great majority of candidates will be fending for themselves as activists stay at home.

Mood in Labour is more buoyant but not by much – Labour are finding things very difficult with Leave voters, and the more candid canvassers admit the Labour leader is very far from being an asset on the doorstep. Candidate lists show a surprising shortage of Labour candidates standing in rural wards. Labour is still likely to recover some ground, having suffered from a strong Conservative turnout when these seats were last fought at the same time as the 2015 election.

If neither of the main parties are very confident, who is likely to gain votes? There are no candidates for ‘Change UK’ (The Independent Group registered its party too late and does not have effective local branches yet). Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is bypassing the locals and concentrating its efforts on the Euro-elections, with their brand confused by the Tommy Robinson-advised UKIP party.

While the Liberal Democrats are also likely to recover ground, local byelections seem to indicate this only happens where they have substantial campaign bases. Opinion polls have also indicated a great deal of turbulence in support for each party. All in all, it would be a mug’s game trying to predict the results before the ballot boxes are opened after 10pm on Thursday 2 May. Next week: We try to predict the results!

What’s uniting MPs at the moment? If I give you three guesses, I bet you won’t get it.

Ok, you win.

It’s low-level letterboxes.

They hate them.

As do postal workers, not surprisingly.

If anyone can relate to the postal workers, it’s MPs and any seasoned political campaigners, who spend most of their weekends knocking on people’s doors and putting leaflets through letterboxes in all kinds of weather.

They will have tried desperately to avoid the bits of metal on the other side of the box, or the fuzzy bit, or tried to shove a leaflet into a box that was too small, or upright (not horizontal).

Every MP, councillor and activist will have either experienced or heard of someone putting a leaflet through a low-level letterbox on polling day and subsequently been bitten by a dog, or hurt their back.

In January this year, just a few hours before the no confidence motion in the government, Conservative MP for Chelmsford Vicky Ford, introduced a piece of legislation which brought MPs of all parties together in unison.

A private members’ bill banning low level letter boxes and changing the UK building regulations to bring our current building standards up to European levels, meaning that all new builds will have letterboxes 0.7 – 1.7m higher from the ground.

The campaign itself has been a long-standing campaign by postal workers’ unions like the Communications Workers Union (CWU).

The aim of the campaign was to curb the number of back injuries, dog bites and other injuries suffered owing to low level letterboxes. Last year alone it is estimated that 16,800 back-related injuries were suffered by postal workers as a result of low level letterboxes.

With divisions on the left and right, it’s good to see that politicians can unite around harder to reach issues facing the UK.

And when you’re designing your next home, make sure you get that letterbox right – politicians will be the first to thank you.

Congratulations are due to light consultant Kaivin Wong and resident objector Agapi Fylaktou, who made planning history this week as the first non-council speaker at a Westminster City Council planning committee.

Now that Westminster City Council has allowed civilians to speak at meetings, we thought it might be worthwhile to look at how to make your three minutes in the spotlight more effective.

The contributions come from colleagues who sit on planning committees, have sat on planning committees and, frankly, have watched rather too many planning committees. All the stories are real, but names have been withheld to protect the innocent and guilty.

Accentuate the positive. Usually, the applicant’s team goes after the objectors have done their stuff. So, committee members have listened to all the problems neighbours are convinced your application will bring upon them – eternal darkness, inability to ever get on a bus, flush the toilet, get decent broadband, you know. It’s tempting to deal with them. Frankly, don’t. If they claim something so absolutely outrageous, then deal with it quickly at the start of your time. Then tell them why the application is good (more on that in a bit). If you deal with their objections in a methodical way, all you are really doing is reminding councillors that the objections exist. So, stay positive.

What are the good things, again? We’ve seen this happen too many times. Applicants – not our clients, promise – tell Hounslow members how many cycle spaces there’ll be, or Hillingdon all about the great affordable housing. Find out what they care about, and tell them about that. For most of London that’s affordable housing, we grant you, but there are plenty of different interests in different boroughs. You just need to know them.

Dress the part. You may be a multi-millionaire property developer. If so, we congratulate you. You have taken risks, made good decisions, and reaped the rewards. All we ask is that you think carefully before dressing like a multi-millionaire property developer. It’s a few years now since we asked a Tower Hamlets councillor why he had led a charge (successfully) to refuse a decent scheme: “I didn’t like them, standing there in their thousand-pound suits”. Dress like members of the committee do. At some, it’s proper smart stuff. At some, they look they’ve come in from a spot of plastering. It’s good to fit in.

Speak up! We’ve seen this all to often. The committee have gone down a bizarre decision-making cul-de-sac or officers have got something wrong or members want a simple change that you are very happy to make. After nervous glances, someone on the team stands up and nervously says “Chair, can I just…er, I just wanted to clar…” only to be stopped by a Chair with a stern reminder that their three minutes has come and gone and their job is now to listen. Push the fear to one side, stand up, and say what you need to say, in a nice clear voice. “It’s 40% affordable, not 14!”. Alright, you might get slapped down but neither the Town and Country Planning Act or the Localism Act imposes a custodial sentence for speaking out of turn at a planning committee. We’ve saved deferrals and refusals by gently but firmly pushing client team members in the back, and we’re not frightened to do it again.

Practice! We’ll help, obviously. Perhaps you have undergone one of our ‘Angry Councillor’ sessions where one of our colleagues who you have never met before will question you rather heavily. Last year, someone rang us back to say that after the session they hadn’t slept all night for worrying about how he was going to reply to any questions asked by the forthcoming planning committee. After tea, sympathy and a bit more practice he walked out with a resolution to grant.

Stay calm. You are an experienced consultant. Doesn’t really matter in which field. Sunlight and daylight, maybe. Highways, possibly. A planner with years of experience. Sooner or later, a councillor with about two hours of training in planning (including the sandwich break) is going to tell you that you don’t know what you are talking about based on their graduation from the University of Life. Ignore the temptation to do what we saw happen in Camden once. After a clear explanation on why proposed basement works wouldn’t cause most of the borough to collapse was responded to with a “well, that’s your opinion”, he, well, did his nut and gave them a two minute breakdown of his thirty years in civil engineering. Frankly, most members on the committee will be a bit embarrassed by their colleagues’ rudeness – so focus on them. And count to ten.

Look the right way.  Simple one this. The officers may be familiar to you by now. The members, no. But the members are the ones that need the eye contact.

And don’t forget to smile – you may feel frustrated with these councillors, but don’t forget they are only human.

Of course, there’s more – careful rehearsal, turn up at the right venue (we’ve seen that fail to happen) and if there’s something you think we’ve forgotten let us know and we’ll put your comments in. It goes without saying that the best way to ensure happiness is to talk to us. We’ll support you all the way and we’ll buy the first round of drinks afterwards. See you at committee!

The TIGgers, the so-called ‘independent group’ of MPs that have left both Labour and the Tories this week, are the new kids on the block – but what could this mean for local politics?

The TIGgers don’t yet have a political party infrastructure, they don’t have a set of policies – only a few values that seem deliberately vague, and at the moment they seem to be a single-issue anti-Brexit / People’s Vote party – when it’s possible (maybe) that Brexit might be sorted within the next month.  That’s not to say that the Labour defectors in particular, are very genuine about the anti-Semitism in the party and Corbyn’s unsuitability to become leader.

However, all that could change in a week.  We could see funding pour into them from the likes of Love Film’s Simon Franks; Labour Brexiteers could join (that’s one rumour); or an avalanche of people from Stephen Kinnock to Amber Rudd could join and create the new En Marche!

That could mean a general election this autumn (sorry).  But what about grassroots members, local activists – and most importantly for the development industry, local councillors?

The question is would we see defections of councillors to the new party – let’s call it The SDP Mark II – costing both the Conservatives and Labour overall control of councils in some parts of the country?

Here we need to understand the personality of councillors, and why they are councillors in the first place. Many councillors from all the major political parties harbour ambitions of eventually becoming an MP or progressing in the political world, particularly younger councillors (those under the age of 40). Leaving an established party for a smaller party could reduce their chances of becoming an MP or progressing elsewhere in politics.

Those over the age of 40 harbour ambitions to be a cabinet member for an area that interests them or become a leader of a local authority. The people that become councillors do so as they want to help change the world around them and improve people’s lives. The same rules apply for councillors as MPs, in order to shape politics and change the world, particularly in the British political system, you often have to be part of something far bigger.

That’s not to say all councillors are motivated purely by ambition.  Some are more idealistic and ideological.  Some may just not like their fellow party members, and their fellow party members may feel the same about them.

The TIGgers are most likely to split the vote on the left; they may attract disgruntled Tory voters, but far less than those on the left.

Standing to be a TIGger is likely to be a harder route to electoral success for candidates. No matter how ostentatious TIG become they will still face the same constraints that the most recent large splinter party, UKIP faced. Whilst there were a lot of councillors who defected to UKIP, UKIP only ever controlled one council, Thanet, during its halcyon days.

What about the lessons from the SDP? History tells us the lesson with the SDP is that councillor defections were greater in areas where the Labour MP defected. The SDP briefly controlled Islington (where all three MPs had joined) through defection of councillors – but then lost all but one seat in the 1982 council elections. In other councils, and where there wasn’t an SDP defector MP, councillor defections only happened when there was a large group all moving as one.

Faced with this cold hard logic it will be a major challenge for the TIGgers to see masses of councillors defecting to them in the future.

The scenarios where people may defect could range from Labour members in councils that are moving to the far left or Conservative councillors perturbed by their associations becoming Blue Kippers. Councillors may also defect to the party if they fear being deselected by their local associations; however local elections in London are three years away. Defections appear more likely to happen in London and the home-counties, rather than elsewhere in the UK, based on the pro-remain views of the group and the electorate.

If you’re on twitter you might want to check who follows https://twitter.com/IndyCouncilGrp.

A week is a long time in politics quipped Harold Wilson in 1964. His phrase has never been more poignant in British politics than at present, indeed there have been many long weeks over the past couple of years in British politics.  For developers working in local authorities at present they should heed the words of our Prime Minister, ‘nothing has changed’.

Two of our projects are up for awards at the PR Moment Awards – an estate regeneration for a local authority, and a scheme where we helped overturn an officer’s recommendation for refusal.