Local by-elections: LGA First News

While I thought that the turnout in our Arbury Ward Nuneaton election was low at 17%, of the 13 by-elections listed in the above, 3 others had lower turnouts.  Manchester: Ancoats and Clayton (Lab hold) 11%, Liverpool: Riverside (Lab hold) 12% and Chelmsford: South-Woodham-Elmwood (SWF gain from Con) 14%.

Of the others, only Bracknell Forest: Winkfield and Cranborne (Con hold) at 27% was over 25%.

Maybe it's the time of year?  Certainly here in Nuneaton, the siting of polling booths in one district didn't help.

Finally, unfortunately, only we in the Arbury Ward Nuneaton were able to record a con gain.  Thank you team and voters!

NBBC Council Wednesday 11 December 2013

Question by Cllr Jeff Morgan

"Does Cllr Harvey now accept, following our Conservative by-election victory in the Arbury Ward, that the residents of Arbury and Nuneaton more widely through our petitions, feel deeply let down by Labour with regard to the flawed Borough Plan and are rejecting it, by letting their votes do the talking?"

To which Cllr Harvey graciously welcomed me to Council, congratulated me on asking a question on my first Council, but then proceeded to attempt to pour cold water over our victory (narrow margin, low turnout, no need for an election with only 6 months to go etc). 

Unfortunately the Mayor (Lab, Cllr Bob Copland) did not allow any supplementaries so I was unable to come back on those points.

BTW as they say in txt spk, Labour are artfully trying to paint us Conservatives into a corner regarding the very upstream issue of replacing the county's district councils in favour of one unitary. We tabled an amendment to his motion, seeking more information before going further, but that was lost and then the motion was passed with the usual majority.  Cllr Harvey forced a recorded vote, seeking to portray us as being  in favour of abolishing Nuneaton and Bedworth borough Council. 

 Our position is not that we want to abolish our local council, but that much more information is needed about  the discussions Cllr Seccombe is going to have and their outcome.  We remain committed to a system of governance which is as local as effectively possible for the people of Nuneaton and Bedworth, bearing in mind the overall burden to council tax payers.  We could be talking about savings of £100ks here, but until such time as we can see what we’re voting for, we reserve our position