Progress by Endeavour- a Long Eaton TLIAF

Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Chapter 3: The Local Government Act 1992

Coming to power with a weak mandate in a time of economic uncertainty, the Clarke government was naturally somewhat cautious in its dealings, a move which rather undermined the attempts to cut government spending and may, though here opinion remains divided, have led to a slower economic recovery. In one aspect though, the mood was far more radical than the 5 seat majority would imply- in announcing an intention to reform Local Government Clarke was to kick start a process that would transform the administrative governance of the country in a manner more drastic and far reaching than anything save for the demands for Home Rule from the Nationalists.

Yet this process was to be begun, not with a grand announcement thundered towards the heavens, but with a quiet nod towards the exit. Aiming to target the low hanging fruit first, Clarke introduced a bill in September of 1992 to move all councils then using the election-by-thirds approach to having full council elections at three year intervals. There were rational arguments for this- it would save a not inconsiderable sum in nationwide election expenses as well as allowing councillors a longer uninterrupted period of time for governance between elections- but the mood across the Alliance was one of concern, both from the principled point of allowing a poorly run council longer to make a mess of things, and from the more selfish point of view that we had benefited greatly from the thirds system in the past and had concerns over our performance in the new system.

Naturally the bill was soon subjected to lengthy debate filled with many attempts to amend them- I can only suggest the Hansard records of September/October 1992 for the full details as their complexity has as yet precluded any full account from being published. In the broadest sense however, there was a general feeling that the reform didn't go far enough, but no agreement about where it should go. Paddy Ashdown naturally introduced an amendment to elect by STV, which was equally naturally voted down by both the main parties, there was a proposal to switch from 3 to 4 year terms, which was subjected to much scrutiny before being, eventually, narrowly defeated by those who felt that it was inappropriate to make the system less accountable when it was in such need of reform. There were also numerous proposals to add further policies, ranging from cutting the number of councillors, to merging Urban Districts into the appropriate Rural District, to extending the County Boroughs (the mere suggestion of which had the South East Derbyshire Rural District Council Community Group getting out the Derbian octopi again) to abolishing everything below the County level. Clarke managed to get things back on course by promising to establish a new Boundary Commission to make suggestions for the reform of Local Government, allowing the bill to receive Royal Assent in November 1992 in time to be implemented the following year. Of course as is the way of things what was intended to be a temporary stop-gap before the commission reported was to last rather longer.

The Election 1993 was thus to be the first full council election in Long Eaton since 1913, and while we had been planning for an election in June of that year, the new reality meant these plans required either extensive revision or starting from scratch depending on who exactly you talked to. The basic issue was that campaigning in four two member wards when you have only 1 councillor defending their seat is rather different from campaigning in four six member wards when you have three councillors defending seats in different wards- James having decided that retiring in 1996 wasn't really that different from retiring in 1995 and that w really needed all the help we could get. On top of the difficulties of having to spread a diminished pool of activists and resources more thinly, we had the added difficulty of having to scrape together a significant number of paper candidates. The reason for this was rather simple- in a two member ward having only one candidate is an error, but manageable- between people who will only vote for you, vote splitting between parties and vote splitting between candidates within parties, a suitably popular candidate can manage to overcome the fact that he is essentially standing against twice the number of candidates. In a six member ward, however, this is much less difficult- even the people who might only vote for the single Liberal in a two-member contest will feel it necessary to use the rest of their votes when there is only one Liberal available in five or six seats. Meanwhile the sheer number of candidates makes it inevitable that, for example, all six of your Conservative or Labour opponents will receive a roughly equal number of second preferences from your Labour or conservative leaning supporters, making it much more difficult to rise above the divided opposition.

As such it was all hands on deck. We spent the six months from October 1992 arm twisting, hastily approving people on the most basic level and whipping around for the deposit money. It was to be the first appearance of some familiar faces on future focus leaflets- from the Osemans and Martin Prior in Derby Road, to Richard Pilgrim in New Sawley and Colin Hayes in Nottingham Road- while I myself was drafted to fill out the Nottingham Road slate where we felt James had the best chance of hanging on of any of our existing councillors. The nature of the Alliance meant that there was a Liberal and an SDP candidate in each ward, but beyond that and the full slate in Nottingham Road we managed 5 candidates in Derby Road and 4 in New Sawley, Sawley Road's membership being instructed to campaign elsewhere. As March turned to April, the shape of the returns pushed us to a narrower and narrower focus. Rodney had clearly lost, though the returns from Old Sawley were rather more positive than those from New Sawley proper, and both Ian and James looked to be in trouble.

Naturally we called for all resources to be diverted to Derby and Nottingham Roads, but it was at this point that the Alliance faced a rather local nadir- the SDP were rather miffed that we had written off their only councillor in favour of trying to save the two Liberals and refused the request, even calling on Sawley Road members to exclusively campaign in New Sawley. Had they extended that to the Derby Road and Nottingham Road members as well, it would probably have ruptured the whole agreement for the time-being, but as was relations were merely frosty for a few years and some personal vendettas ensued. I remain, however, convinced that we could have saved Ian with their assistance.

The results on the day were an utter disaster for everyone save Labour, who were once more rising in the polls having won Finchley on a 16% swing after Margaret Thatcher decided to stand down. Long Eaton's natural susceptibility to the swing combined with the full council election led to Labour sweeping across most of the council, with the only survivors being James, a trio of Conservatives in New Sawley and Derby Road and, of course, Bill Camm. Following the election, both we and the SDP entered a period of introspection and review, while I threw myself into following the information coming out of the Boundary Commission.
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Chapter 4: The Second Kinnock Government

Ken Clarke's government was never particularly stable, and when the loss of Finchley was followed the second year by a Liberal by-election victory in Bath it became clear that it would not be able to survive for much longer. In the end Clarke struggled on for another 6 months before going to the polls in March of 1995, having managed a term of what was generally perceived to have been 'just muddling along.' In such an environment, it was somewhat inevitable that Labour would win back control of the government, and equally inevitable perhaps that they're majority would only be a couple of dozen seats larger than that of the outgoing government. But with Kinnock returning to Downing Street the path of Local Government Reform would find itself suddenly diverted.

In the years since the 1993 election I had been busying myself with applying the now obsolete art of Kremlinology to the pronouncements of the newly established boundary commission, which was, thankfully for my continued interest, beginning with the East and West Midlands[1]. For a year I scoured the press bulletins, occasional comments and requests by the commission for information on this or that subject in an attempt to divine their judgement, and while there was much that I was to get wrong, I was pleased to find that the two items I had placed bets on- the annexation of Long Eaton to Nottingham and there being no substantial changes to the boundaries of Ilkeston- were indeed present, much to our mutual consternation. These were but the most locally important of the proposed changes, which ranged from massive expansions of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester County Boroughs, to the transfer of some areas in the north of Derbyshire to Sheffield and the granting of County Borough status to a rather enlarged Chesterfield Municipal Borough Council. Still more radical was the annexation of most of Rutland and the area around Swadlincote to Leicestershire, to say nothing of the wholesale reorganisation proposed in the Black Country[2].

While on a purely personal level I could have lived with being transferred to Nottinghamshire County Council, found a degree of sense in it indeed, the city itself felt remote and distant from Long Eaton, and even in those days it was quicker to get into Derby, albeit with less reason to. It was thus exactly the sort of report that galvanises one to immediate action- in this case a letter writing campaign and organising a petition against the transfer of Long Eaton between counties. For once in my life I was to find myself on the same side as the dreaded SEDRDCCG Octopi, and having wrangled an endorsement for Martin Garnett- who being from Draycott was felt by common consent to be a good compromise candidate for the constituency by the Long Eaton and Ilkeston branches of the Alliance- we whole-heartedly threw ourselves into the campaign. Fighting on such a platform was to throw up some interesting canvass returns- for the first time in my political career Nottingham Road was not our strongest area as areas on the western fringes of the council came out strongly against the suggested move. Old Sawley in particular soon appeared a veritable hotbed of discontent- not surprisingly considering they already disliked being governed simply from Long Eaton let alone the imposing Neoclassical splendour of Nottingham's Council House. As a result, we achieved a dizzying 15% in the polls and managed to split the vote sufficiently that Labour's John Stafford managed an unexpected victory.

The month after the election, the commission reported on North East England and Tyneside, which was followed barely 3 weeks afterwards by Kinnock's announcement that it was to be wound up, job barely half finished, and replaced with a new government white paper based on the creation of a system of single-tier authorities using Central Place theory[3]- something which had been formulated in 1994 as Labour's more radical response to the Clarke government reforms. The general policy within the Alliance parties was still being rather vigorously debated at this point- naturally we were in favour of localism and STV but beyond that the process was rather like herding cats and we appeared to be heading straight towards a national policy forum on the subject. Local opinion was, needless to say, as against Kinnock's 'Supercouncils' as Clarke's reforms, which was creating a rather nice environment for us heading into the 1996 UDC Election.

[1] As indeed the 1958 commission did IOTL, though there the East Midlands included Cambridgeshire and excluded Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire which were grouped with Yorkshire.

[2] These changes were all proposed by the 58-67 Commission IOTL.

[3] i.e. something along the lines of Redcliffe-Maud.
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Chapter 5: The Election of 1996

In many ways the election of 96 was to be something of a realigning election in Long Eaton, especially for we in the Alliance, driven by a number of significant factors. Most importantly, with the switch to full council elections choices in targeting were becoming more tightly focused on all sides- whereas before a rising Conservative party, for example, may choose to target a weak Labour candidate in New Sawley one year, but follow this up with an all out assault on the Liberal in Derby Road the following year, more benefits were now accrued from selecting one or two wards and pushing to take all 6 seats there while relying on natural swing elsewhere to push you over the edge for a full majority. Conversely a defending party would be better off abandoning one ward entirely and focussing resources elsewhere rather than choosing based on specific candidates.

Secondly, much like in the coal and steel industries, the long, gradual decline in the lace industry had finally reached a new, more economically viable, equilibrium, but had left had a significant number of job losses in its wake. Nottingham Road, the Northern part of Sawley Road and eastern Derby Road were the most affected by this, while the more suburban areas of Long Eaton further out from the historic core tended to only see secondary or tertiary effects from this. As such, the populace of Nottingham Road in particular had pivoted away from the Conservatives in favour of Labours more left wing, interventionist policies, and in turn Labour had focused in part on turning Nottingham Road into a local stronghold, with Derby Road and Sawley Road as secondary targets. The consequence of this, unfairly really considering the heritage of the area around the train station, was that New Sawley was allowed to drift more strongly into the Conservative camp. None of this is to say that either ward would have remained unassailable in a good year of course, but in the period of rough political balance between the big two parties that characterised the late 90s and early 2000s this effectively meant that the main battleground was the two wards of Derby Road and Sawley Road.

The Alliance was equally rocked by change. James Barnes finally made good on his promise to step down, and while Colin Hayes was by no means a poor candidate it was abundantly clear that he wasn't going to retain most of James's personal vote and the seat would be lost. Meanwhile the anxiety over the future of the district that had so increased our parliamentary vote the previous year were clearly not going away- indeed if anything the uncertainty over Kinnock's proposed Supercouncils was simply increasing it in certain areas. With such strong canvass returns, and a revitalised activist base, it was no surprise that the Conservatives were soon grumbling about the dreaded 'Yellow peril' in their stronger areas, and the knock on effects as efforts were made to divert campaigners and resources by jittery candidates blunted what could otherwise have been a strong conservative attack.

With relations between us and the SDP still somewhat frosty, and Ian Neill already inundated with Liberals from Nottingham and Sawley Road wards offering assistance, I had a brief conversation with the Exec (this being before my formal co-option) and headed on down to New Sawley to help the soggies out in their campaign to get Rodney re-elected as a peace offering. This was to turn out to be something of a providential journey, equipping me better for the future in more ways than one. On the most personal level I enjoyed a number of evenings in pubs across the ward, from the very modern Wilsthorpe Tavern, to the more Victorian delights of the Railway Inn and what was to transpire to be the final hurrah of the Royal Oak before it entered a terminal decline. More widely, it emerged that there was a growing network between concerned citizens in Sawley, Church Wilne, Breaston and Draycott over the proposed boundary changes that I was able to link into and join up with the similar concerns that I had already come across in Sandiacre and which laid the groundwork for much that was to come. And most immediately the canvass returns for the Alliance remained significantly higher in Old Sawley than New Sawley proper- where Rodney had a personal following from his town as councillor but the party in general wasn't doing so well.

In that environment the results that were to emerge from the election should perhaps have been of no surprise, though they were certainly a great balm to those in the Alliance who had felt so demoralised 3 years earlier. Ian managed a very respectable 3rd place in Derby Road, and pulled Martin Prior up with him in 5th place, while Rodney managed once again to scrape up a narrow victory in New Sawley. The Conservatives meanwhile gained 5 seats in Derby Road and Sawley Road, but when combined with their losses to us remained 1 seat short of a majority government, while our three councillors were to form a rough voting bloc with the ever present Bill Camm.
 
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Yes

Yes

It is TLs like this that keep a meaningful portion of my American soul forever British (well, to be fair, this and the potential lurking BSE from downing cheap beefburgers at uni in the early Nineties....)
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Yes said:
It is TLs like this that keep a meaningful portion of my American soul forever British (well, to be fair, this and the potential lurking BSE from downing cheap beefburgers at uni in the early Nineties....)
Click to expand...

And it's comments like this that make it all worthwhile.
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Chapter 6: The Nottinghamshire Border

When Ken Clarke had announced back in 1992 that the gears of change for local government boundaries were to be unjammed, it had been rather overshadowed immediately by the wider implications of the general review also announced at the same time. Nonetheless, the move had caused a fair bit of buzz in certain circles- chiefly those I was soon to find myself ensconced in- of Long Eaton society. Almost immediately the council passed what must have been the 6th or 7th attempt to gain Municipal Borough status, submitting a document to Parliament with almost irreverent speed that, it swiftly transpired, was essentially the same as one from the 40s one of the old grandees in the local Conservative party had been keeping updated every so often[1]. That attempt, like all the previous ones, failed on the basis that it was felt, in the words of the rather florid rejection letter sent back to Long Eaton in July 1993,'to lie in that unhappy ground where it is neither so small a change as to be merely a minor matter of tidying a boundary that has become slightly outdated in the passage of time, nor so large a change as to acquire a sense of urgency that many years of government neglect has allowed to fester for too long.'

Yet there were a couple of other cases which it was felt across the board did fit the former requirement of being merely a matter of tidying up an improper situation, concerning both the eastern and western borders of the council. In the west, the annexation of most of the remainder of Sawley and Wilsthorpe parish in 1934[2] had placed the boundary of the UDC along a series of field boundaries including a long extension out towards Risley which was owned by Wilsthorpe Lodge Farm. Since then, however, the construction of the M1 had sliced across this area creating leaving Wilsthorpe Lodge accessible only by a bridge across the M1 near what was to become the Novotel, and placing a similarly sized amount of farmland from Breaston Field Farm on the Long Eaton side of the motorway with no direct access at all. The farmer in the latter case had, in fact, sold the fields in question on to Long Eaton council, but though we were able to recoup some of the costs by renting the fields out for agricultural purposes, any attempt to use them for more housing- or even allotments- was thwarted by South East Derbyshire RDC refusing to allow it, and the inability to get the land fully transferred administratively. In addition about two-thirds of a field by the river also remained part of Breaston with the only access being via a path across the field behind the Harrington arms, while Wilsthorpe Lodge's upper field was now in the slightly farcical situation of being separated from the farmhouse by the A52, thus placing two major roads between it and the council buildings which were supposed to be administrating it.[3]

The issues of the western boundary, however, were not to be resolved for some time to come, and while I shall come to that later[4] the story on the eastern border was both very similar, and yet completely dissimilar at the same time. When back in 1894 the boundary between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire County Councils had been fixed in legislature, the Erewash river had been the logical choice for much of the southern stretch. Now over a century later, it remained the logical choice, but where a hundred years of erosion, industrial developments, infilling, canalisation, straightening, railway construction and flooding had altered the course of the river in small but significant ways, the administrative boundary had remained static. Worse still, a slight quirk regarding the extent of the estate of Toton Manor on the west bank of the Erewash meant for a certain stretch the decision had been made to run the county boundary along a series of field drains until it reached the Golden Brook and then return to the river via that. The net result of all this was that, much like in the west, the eastern boundary of Long Eaton UDC rather haphazardly meandered its way through Toton Sidings, dived inland across the by-pass channel, cut through the backgardens of numbers 16, 18 and 20 Denacre Avenue and cut the corner of Lansdown Grove before skirting the rest of Long Eaton (where housing had been built right up to the council boundary), joining the Golden Brook and the River once more and finally reaching the Trent through a sudden ninety-degree turn down the last field boundary heading east, which at least meant we'd avoided the logistical headache of having to cross three counties just to use the Barton Ferry.

By the late 90s, however, the ferry had gone, gravel extraction and the subsequent flooding of the pits had completely obliterated the lower course of the Erewash River, the Manor Farm Recreation Ground had swallowed up the fields between the original course of the river and the by-pass channel, and 14 houses on Landsdown Grove were entering their seventh decade of being administered by Beeston and Stapleford Urban District, and consequently Nottingham County, councils despite forming the corner joining two roads in Long Eaton[5], Arrangements had been made over the years of course, and dialogue on the matter was really rather amicable- the agreement basically stood that we in Long Eaton would supply all services as required and in return Beeston and Stapleford would grant us the rates from the houses in question. It was, to be blunt, a de facto annexation, but as I was told at the time by Nicola Carter the attitude over in Toton could be summed up as 'why should we have anything to do with them anyway?'

As such, when 1992 rolled around and augers appeared to promise success on a bid to have the matter formally rectified, the local process went remarkably smoothly. An existing verbal agreement- that the mutual boundary should follow the rerouted course of the Erewash River, though using the by-pass channel rather than the main channel- was put into writing, proposed in session with multiparty support and passed unanimously by both parties in January of 1993. The task at that point was to get approval from our respective County Councils- a matter which took some time to get on to the agenda, but was finally sorted in September of that year. The matter of Parliamentary approval was a different question however. Angela Knight approached John Gummer- who as Minister for the Environment had authority over Local Government- and was met with an approving nod but a recommendation that, business of government being what it was, the preference would be for a more wide-ranging bill- the boundary required rectifying right the way from Long Eaton up to Ilkeston at the very least and there were numerous small issues along virtually the entire length of the border. Nontheless, the communiqué from Angela was quite clear that simply having an Erewash wide minor border adjustments bill would quite suffice for something that could be fast-tracked through the House.

It is strange how words can acquire a sense of dread quite unbecoming of their meaning, but 'minor border adjustments' was to become one of mine over the years. I had, naturally given everything else, ended up as the Liberal member of the all-party delegation to try and see if we could get some sort of agreement sorted with our counterparts in Ilkeston MB and South East Derbyshire RD Councils the first meeting of which was to be held in November of 1993. I shall not bore you with the details of the many interminable and utterly fruitless meetings that were to take place over the next 4 years, but the bottom line was that while both we and Beeston and Stapleford UDC were willing, nobody else was. SE Derbyshire, concerned about setting a precedent that could be used to partition the council, had decided to take the sort of attitude towards ceding territory that would have made an Israeli settler proud, and the messages passed from Beeston and Stapleford was that they were getting the same sort of noises from Basford RDC on their side of the border. Meanwhile Ilkeston's concept of 'minor border adjustments' seemed to be only annexing the rest of Kirk Hallam, Stanton-by-Dale, Shipley, Awsworth, Cossall and Trowell. The only upshot was the discovery that everyone on Sandiacre Parish Council was sick and tired of the antics of the Rural District (which for added irony actually met in a rather grand old building at number 3, St. Mary's Gate in the middle of Derby) and were considering applying for Urban District status[6].

The 1995 General Election appeared to spell the end of our attempts to rectify the eastern border- all current applications for changes not already placed before the house were frozen and Cherie Booth- the new Environment Minister- indicated that support would be withdrawn for a number of larger changes that had been proposed. Even John Stafford clarifying that this still meant that the sort of minor border adjustments we were proposing 'would probably go through' (many of the existing councils being considered for conversion to Civil Parishes in the new Supercouncils) this simply seemed to put us back in the same dismal situation we had been in since 1993. Meetings with the other councils became less and less frequent, and after one final meeting in July of 1996 where Ilkeston spent the entire time complaining about Stafford refusing to back their attempt to annex Kirk Hallam (a move that while actually entirely reasonable was unlikely to pass in the current climate- besides they'd long run out of sympathy) I and the rest of the negotiating group asked permission to end the process.

Seemingly defeated, the subject ceased to be discussed beyond my semi-regular pub sessions with Kenneth Chappell and Ann Stevenson who had been my Conservative and Labour counterparts respectively on the negotiating team and were only two of many cross-political friendships I was forming in this brave new world of local government reform. Then in September of 1998 a ray of sunshine suddenly pierced the gloom- John Stafford had been talking with a few other MPs in the region and it emerged that we were far from the only councils to be in such a situation. With active backing from 6 MPs- cross-party no less- and support from most of the wider region he'd gone back to Booth and made an interesting suggestion: that the various small bits of reform across the East Midlands be bundled together as a single bill. Even if each one by itself was too small to put before the house at the time, together they represented a substantial body of minor changes that had been left fallow for far too long. After some consideration, Booth accepted the argument and gave her backing. The Bill received its First Reading on the afternoon of October 17th, and made a relatively rapid progress through the house and the Lords, allowing it to come into force on April 1st 1999. Landsdown Road was, finally, a full part of Long Eaton UDC, just in time for the local elections.

[1] The original document can be found in Long Eaton Library to this day, where I have also found a reference to that being no less than the 4th attempt to get Borough status. Needless to say this was something of a local obsession by the looks of things.
[2] A large section of rural countryside stretching off towards Church Wilne was incorporated into Breaston parish instead.
[3] This was resolved IOTL in 1982. The fact that it is now between principal Authorities and not within a single council is delaying matters greatly.
[4] Chapter 14 by my reckoning.
[5] Amazingly (or not as the case may be) this was also the case IOTL from sometime in the 30s (I only have maps of 1921 and 1938 to hand) until the Local Government Boundary Commission for England resolved to change it in November 1982.
[6] Which considering Sandiacre in the 1990s was larger and more urbanised than Long Eaton in the 1890s certainly wouldn't be unreasonable.

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Uhura's Mazda

Uhura's Mazda

Banned
Alex Richards said:
Now over a century later, it remained the logical choice, but where a hundred years of erosion, industrial developments, infilling, canalisation, straightening, railway construction and flooding had altered the course of the river in small but significant ways, the administrative boundary had remained static. Worse still, a slight quirk regarding the extent of the estate of Toton Manor on the west bank of the Erewash meant for a certain stretch the decision had been made to run the county boundary along a series of field drains until it reached the Golden Brook and then return to the river via that. The net result of all this was that, much like in the west, the eastern boundary of Long Eaton UDC rather haphazardly meandered its way through Toton Sidings, dived inland across the by-pass channel, cut through the backgardens of numbers 16, 18 and 20 Denacre Avenue and cut the corner of Lansdown Grove before skirting the rest of Long Eaton (where housing had been built right up to the council boundary), joining the Golden Brook and the River once more and finally reaching the Trent through a sudden ninety-degree turn down the last field boundary heading east, which at least meant we'd avoided the logistical headache of having to cross three counties just to use the Barton Ferry.
Click to expand...
Oh God. You've told me about this before, but... "haphazardly meandered its way through Toton Sidings". :confounded:

Is that map from 1998?
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
Uhura's Mazda said:
Oh God. You've told me about this before, but... "haphazardly meandered its way through Toton Sidings". :confounded:

Is that map from 1998?
Click to expand...

It's from some point between 1983 and 1995, suitably edited to account for the alterations in Housebuilding in the New Sawley area. Comparing with a (sadly unusable) map from 1999 I took some photos of a while back I believe the only substantial unintended change is that the Pennyfields Estate had been partially built at that point (the start of it is just visible below the allotments opposite West Park carpark). To be honest, I think that's about as good as I'm going to get it.
 
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