Progress by Endeavour- a Long Eaton TLIAF

Chapter 13: The Combined Authority

While there had been talk about forming a combined authority since they were first announced, it had been a near-universal sentiment in the negotiating team that we had both more pressing matters to sort out, and would need official backing from respective electorates before starting anything. As such, it was something which took a back seat to the border issues until after both the resolution of that and the elections of 2011.

A month later, however, matters were rather thrown accelerated by the arrival at the Town Hall of a rather thick, glossy magazine touting the benefits of the proposed new 'Erewash Super-Authority'. It was, naturally enough, from Ilkeston (which despite the best efforts of the local Liberals was something of a one-party state by the mid-2000s) and it soon transpired that a copy had been sent to every Urban district and parish council from Alfreton in the north to Castle Donington in the South, and from Little Eaton and Belper in the west to Nuthall and Gotham in the east. It was, in short, staggeringly expensive, and the only thing more shocking than the waste of public money that it undoubtedly represented was the contents.

It was, in short, blueprint for something rather along the lines of Kinnocks 'Supercouncils'. Ilkeston, according to pages three through eight at least, recognised the concern that many parishes and urban districts had about being swallowed up by Derby or Nottingham and was proposing to 'unite to form a strong alternative force' in the middle, the seat of which would, naturally, have to be centrally located and as it so happened that really made Ilkeston the only potential partner.

Even as I pondered how much of this was genuine, how much an attempt to secure power over the neighbouring parishes and how much was ego trip; two things struck me. The first was that there was no way this was going to get the required approvals from the county councils even if all the lower authorities actually agreed to it. The second, however, was that the Labour government which seemed to be an inevitability at the next election may well decide to back this. Labour had, after all, never formally abandoned the 'Supercouncil' idea, and it was already known that they felt the combined authorities were a weak step in the process of government reform. And given all that, it was vitally important- as I stressed to John Marshall who had taken over from Kenneth Chappell as the Conservative's go-to guy on these matters- that we got at least the basics of a more reasonable agreement in place less it be assumed by Westminster that this was the only option on offer.

It transpired that we were not the only ones to have come to this conclusion. While most of the outlying areas just ignored the document entirely, and both Derby and Nottingham County Boroughs were already discussing some form of combined authority with their respective immediate suburbs. With Castle Donington refusing to even respond to our initial overtures, and the suggestion of a deal with Beeston and Stapleford UDC overruled by the Conservatives in the council (with Labour not interested we were, after all, reliant on them to get any deal approved) we were thus left with the 'small' question of which parishes of SE Derbyshire RDC to get an agreement with.

The initial moves here were both obvious and well travelled. We approached both Breaston and Sandiacre and found both amenable to an agreement based around pooling infrastructure resources, a joint plan on house and road building and a plan for Long Eaton's Local Education Authority[1] to be expanded to cover elementary education in the parishes in return for guaranteed representation on the governing council.

Slightly further afield, my existing contacts with Martin Garnett bore fruit when he communicated that Draycott Parish Council was considering forming a deal with Breaston (there being many existing links between the two) and after some discussion he offered to serve as an intermediary to bring them into the deal. Meanwhile Sandiacre was approached by Risley Parish Council, who indicated that they wanted in on the deal, and that Hopwell were in such dire straits that they'd agree to practically anything and could be guaranteed to follow Risley into any agreement[2].

Further out, our tentative feelers were received with much less interest. Stanton-by-Dale had been economically devastated by the closure of the ironworks in 2010[3] and now felt there was no option but to accept Ilkeston's bailout offer, no matter how many strings were attached. Dale Abbey seemed to be sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending that nothing was happening, Robert Mee up in West Hallam invited me for a drink before telling me they were trying to organise their own agreement, and Stanley didn't think it was worth even talking about it.

With the Derby suburbs already ruling themselves out by default, the only question mark remaining was Ockbrook and Borrowash Parish. Perched between Spondon and Draycott, the parish council felt themselves very on the edge of two worlds- that of suburban Derby, and that of rural Derbyshire. Even more complex was whether they would plump for our own proposal (as pushed by the Conservatives in the group) or look to the West Hallam grouping. Thus while everyone else was broadly on the same page by March 2013, we found ourselves unable to continue until Ockbrook and Borrowash came to a final decision, and while the Conservatives were still eager, we in the Progressive Coupon were decidedly less convinced.

Cruddas's victory in 2013 proved to be decidedly less concerning than we had anticipated. After an election night in which Long Eaton had ended up receiving a fair amount of national attention due to the two recounts that finally saw David Simmonds- who had ended up as a Junior Minister in the Treasury- defeated in a count that, by chance, was taking place in the New Central Buildings due to an agreement with Ilkeston to alternate for general elections, Cruddas soon established that he had bigger fish to fry with council house building and improved social care than to resurrect the Supercouncils idea. Consequently to this, Labour locally gradually came to the conclusion that the combined authority was going to be the best they were going to get, and started taking more of an interest in it- something really quite annoying considering that we'd spent two years sorting things out just for more delays to emerge.

The 2014 local elections were thus being fought almost entirely on the basis of the combined authorities. For Long Eaton is was a case of thrashing out the details, and with Andrew managing to nab one of the Derby Road seats as the only change locally it was clear that the public were leaning more towards the smaller grouping. Meanwhile SEDRDCCG, sensing impending doom, stood a full slate of candidates in a desperate attempt to block the matter. It was to be the last march of the Octopi however, and apart from winning Dale Abbey and a couple of seats in the multi-member suburban wards of Derby, they performed very poorly across the board. Finally the election in Ockbrook and Borrowash firmly resolved their own questions- a rather heated selection process had been held, and after much argument the suburban faction had won out.

We finally had definite boundaries for the proposed combined authority. Now we simply had to implement it.

[1] I am pretty convinced this never existed at any point IOTL, but the original act established that Urban districts with a population over 20,000 would have control over elementary education and Long Eaton was some way over that by the 70s.
[2] OTL the two councils merged in 2015.
[3] A few years later than IOTL.
 
Chapter 14: The Year of Agreements

It is a strange feature of life that sometimes, after years without anything happening, momentous events all seem to come at once. Thus it was to be for both myself and the Long Eaton Liberals in 2016. For myself, that year marked the point where a significant inheritance allowed me to embark upon the path of self-employment, something which greatly expanded the amount of time I could expend on both political and personal interests. The impacts upon the local party were much greater however.

We had emerged from the 2014 elections with most of a Combined Authority agreement in place and the question of Ockbrook and Borrowash's membership of it resolved in the negative direction. Now Labour's desire to stick their oar in threatened to overturn this, a situation made all the more vexing by the fact that they had refused to get involved prior to this point. We had agreed to a joint execution of responsibilities for housing, primary education and road infrastructure. Labour now indicated that they felt that the Combined authority should have responsibility over all the responsibilities of an urban or rural district council in return for a transfer of more funding.

Needless to say this was met with concern from our potential partners, who had been hoping to gain greater powers by effectively seceding from the Rural District Council. While there was a general sense that the various matters of public health which were currently the responsibility of the rural district council could be included with the Combined authority- especially considering that SE Derbyshire RDC appeared to be in the process of complete dissolution- the various parishes for the most part saw no need to maintain a joint administration of playgrounds, parks and cemeteries when the individual parish councils could do the job. The sole exception to this was Hopwell, but they were in the process of forming a separate agreement with Risley in any case.

With the Conservatives in favour of more power to their own councillors, it was up to we in the Progressive Coupon to attempt to mediate between the concerns of the parishes and the somewhat expansionist desires of the government in Long Eaton. In retrospect the end result of this was actually quite beneficial, but at the time it all just felt like a major frustration. We spent 18 months in lengthy negotiations- negotiations we had not been expecting to have to carry out no less- before finally an agreement was reached that was satisfactory for everyone involved.

In addition to the areas already agreed to be shared, the executive council of the Combined Authority was also to have total authority over all matters of health and social care. Responsibility over cemeteries, parks and playgrounds was, however, to be transferred to the Parish Councils, as well as powers over the lighting and signposting of footpaths, carparks and verges. The Combined Authority agreement was finally signed in a well-publicised event in People's Hall, followed by a large celebratory buffet in February of 2016, but this not to be the only major agreement signed in that space that year.

Ever since the formation of the Alliance back in 82, there had been suggestions of converting the electoral pact into an actual merger of the two parties. At times this drifted into the background, while at others- such as the early 1990s or mid 2000s, it came to the forefront. The 2013 election brought matters to the fore once again. Having fallen back in 2008, we had been expecting to make gains from government unpopularity, but despite the good polling results for Kennedy personally, we had only picked up 2 of the target seats. As such there was a general sense that we needed a rebrand, some sort of headline grabbing move that would get people talking about us once again. In such an environment, the question of merger was once again in the air.

Needless to say, the long period of co-operation and negotiation that had persisted for 3 decades meant that potential merger plans were relatively well advanced, and both on the national and the local scale the question of merger had been much discussed. As such, the costs and benefits, those who would be energised by it and those who would leave, were well known. Thus when the proposal to merge was formally introduced in 2013 the debate was surprisingly quick, and consisted mainly of representatives from the various local branches setting out how they would be affected, and whether they felt it would be of sufficient benefit to carry out.

Locally of course we had an added complication- the Co-operative party. While soundings within the Liberals and SDP indicated that we would only lose a few minor activists at worst[1], it was an open question as to whether the Long Eaton Co-operatives would continue their existing agreement, fully participate in the merger, or choose to go their own way once more. Two key points would prove to be the main drivers of the final decision. First, the Midlands Co-operative indicated that they would be willing to continue to endorse individual candidates despite their membership of major parties over than Labour (Labour's rather over the top accusations of betrayal had helped here); and second, that Jon Hemsley had retired from politics altogether, robbing to the Co-operatives of their most dynamic personality.

We were thus able to draw the co-operatives into an agreement for a full merger in order to pool local electoral resources. It was contingent on one matter however- being able to continue to use the Progressive Coupon as an electoral label. This required going to first the regional executives, and eventually to the national party, but in June 2016 we got the green light to go ahead with this- though due to similar cases elsewhere it would have to be clarified as the 'Long Eaton Progressive Coupon'.

That October we formally signed the agreement, and celebrated with the first Annual General Meeting of the joint party, taking place once in the New Central Buildings of course. It was over dinner that evening that I found myself with the distinct feeling that I had just been present at the birth of a new era in politics, and the funeral of the last.

[1] IOTL the merger was pretty devastating for Long Eaton, here more of the bigger objectors have had a chance to become reconciled or retire.
 
Epilogue: The Future

It is now nearly 30 years since my first steps upon the campaign trail in Long Eaton, and naturally when combined with the recent changes in my life and the council this has given rise to a period of introspective thought. I am no longer the young man who cut his teeth on the last of the yearly elections, nor am I the somewhat older man joining a negotiating team with the neighbours to resolve a long troublesome border. I am, instead, a man increasingly feeling his age and looking to the future health of the party.

In a mere couple of months Cruddas will go to the polls seeking re-election, which I expect him to achieve with relative ease considering that he's facing the less-than commanding presence of David Davies across the dispatch box. A month after that will be our next local elections, where I will say merely that I am feeling optimistic. Once again I am serving as Chief Agent for Sawley Road, with responsibility for Nottingham and Derby Road Wards, but I have communicated my desire to step down from this position after this election. Of course, that simply means that the exec will end up twisting my arm to do the same job in 2020 and beyond, rather than it being an automatic matter, but I've had my eye on a couple of the younger activists and I think there's promise in finding a successor there.

Of course, even with a successor in place, this doesn't mean that I shall be stepping back from the campaign trail- but a return to the early days where the most I had to worry about was having to rescue a canvasser from a difficult conversation would be nice. More widely, the negotiations surrounding the combined authority are still ongoing, we are seeking an expansion of powers to match those of a Municipal borough considering the larger area of the combined authority, which would be very pleasing to those veteran campaigners for Long Eaton to attain that honour. Meanwhile the dismemberment of SE Derbyshire RDC is also on the cards- Sandiacre has put in an application for Urban District Council status, but I suspect the suggestion to group the parishes involved as a new Rural District will bear more fruit- Erewash has been suggested as a name for that, though I rather prefer Wilne. I expect a grand battle over that- SEDRDCCG probably have enough in them for the cephalopods to make one last stand, and various assets are certain to be disputed between the three emerging combined authorities of Morlestone (the Derby suburbs), Erewash/Wilne and a remnant SE Derbyshire which appears to be merging with some parts of Belper RDC. I suspect that the former will be considered the successor authority, but it's sure to be an interesting and lengthy dispute. Meanwhile those areas south of the Trent have made an application to join Repton RDC which will do them a world of good considering Swadlincote UDC have formed a local group themselves.

About the only battle of the past that appears to have been settled is that of the party mergers- there were a couple of 'Continuity Liberal' and 'Continuity SDP' groups which attempted to get going, but both have turned out to be rather damp squibs. Locally a few people walked out, but none have, as of yet, decided to re-enter the political sphere in any manner. I think Kennedy's strong performance on the national level is helping here- you'd never know he'd spent time in rehab to look at him.

No matter what the future may bring though, I feel confident in saying that I shall be in the middle of it, or at least in the middle of its effects on Long Eaton. And truth to tell that's just how I've grown to like it.
 

Sideways

Donor
Just got around to finishing this. It's a dry read but a really good one, so much detail and local knowledge, and some great stuff on local government and realistic campaigning. Thanks for this
 
Just got around to finishing this. It's a dry read but a really good one, so much detail and local knowledge, and some great stuff on local government and realistic campaigning. Thanks for this

I think it would take actually having lived this to make it anything other than a dry read- you'd need all the little asides, comments and anecdotes from personal contact to liven things up.
 
Top