The Local Govt. Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE)  is now consulting on draft plans to redraw the Cambridgeshire County Council electoral divisions. For Romsey the Commission have adopted proposals submitted by the Labour group in an earlier consultation. Labour also used its majority on the Council to adopt this as the City Council’s proposal, without any attempt to gain a cross-party consensus.

On 26th June the City’s Civic Affairs Committee met to discuss what comments the City should now make to these, now draft, proposals from the LGBCE. In the committee papers the ruling Labour Group sought no amendment to the changes suggested to the Romsey boundaries.

The LibDem Group submitted an amendment (see map below) that would have much reduced the impact of the draft changes for Romsey. It was a measured and positive amendment which recognised that the LGBCE proposal to reduce the number of Councillors returned by the City divisions made change inevitable including, as Labour’s proposal did, incorporating part of what is now Coleridge into Romsey.

Labour used its majority to defeat this amendment and to continue its support for the proposed split of Romsey.

The following is an extract from the LibDem amendment:

“… returns the northern boundary between Romsey and Barnwell to the railway line where it has been since Cambridge was divided into wards. This puts the boundary on the double natural boundary of Coldhams Common and the line of the Cambridge to Ipswich railway.

Unusually for an urban area Romsey Town as a former “railway town” has a strong sense of identity which is felt both by long term residents and by those who have recently settled in the area.

The boundary as proposed by the Commission would place the northern part of the current Romsey division in a physically isolated position from the critical mass of the proposed Barnwell division. The people of the area concerned strongly self identify with the Romsey community. Such a boundary would for instance render a nonsense of the Romsey Town allotment society operating outside the division of the same name.
For effective and convenient local government, by encompassing the Coldhams Lane area in the Romsey division, this includes the whole of the catchment area of St. Philip’s primary school in Vinery Way.

The change to the southern boundary acknowledges the importance of Cherry Hinton Road as a local centre to which the streets north of it look, and makes the wide stretch of the Coleridge Recreation Ground part of the boundary between Romsey and Queen Edith’s.

The small change to the boundary between St.Matthew’s and Barnwell mainly returns the boundary to its previous line, but includes the self-contained St.Matthew’s Gardens within Barnwell.”

 

 

   Leave a comment