European Political News

During the winter of 2006-007 I lived in Wales for 5 months. Just.

To be exact, 200m on the Welsh side in the village of Llanymynech, in Powys - while I was working in Shropshire.

Llanymynech sits on the A483 a few miles from both the Shropshire town of Oswestry and Welshpool - next door to a village called Pant (I kid you not). Llanymynech means "Church of the Monks" in English. The A483 is one of three major routes between North and South Wales.

It has 12,500 vehicles a day (2001 figure) travelling down the road. And no bypass. Since I lived next to the A483, I knew more about the 12,500 vehicles than about anything else - especially at 7.00am in the morning.

The problem is that this is one bypass which has been mooted, examined, considered, cancelled, delayed, thrown into the long grass, relisted, repromised, reconsidered, residelined ... you get the picture ... since before 1960.

I’m on record as wishing more power to the Independents locally, but I’d like to acknowledge Alan Meale, the MP for Mansfield, who rebelled against the Post Office closure act. Good one, Alan. I blogged this back last June when our Post Offices were being slated for closure here on the Derbyshire side of the boundary, and the option was “save one another one dies”. Article Series - Post Office Closures Political Implications of Gordon Brown’s Decimation of the Post Offices The Labour Manifestos 1997, 2001, 2005 on Post Offices: What did Gordon Brown and Tony Blair promise? Politics Podcast: The Post Office Closure Programme On the Derbyshire side, they have already gone. via Daily Referendum.

Nich Starling the Norfolk Blogger reports that Iain Dale is banned from schools in Norfolk by the firewall: It is interesting sometimes to see which websites Norfolk County Council seek to block so that schools cannot access them. The obvious things are blocked (anything vaguely risque), but Norfolk County Council do have a habit of blocking some very odd things too, including Iain Dale’s blog. Says Iain in the comments: It was probably the article I wrote on my blog about the disgraceful rise in councillor expenses that did it! Norfolk County Council is controlled by the … er … Conservative Party. How very different from Essex, also controlled by the Conservatives. In Essex the the blog by its Leader, Baron Hanningfield, who is also the Conservative Front Bench Spokesman in the Lords for Transport, is hosted by the County Council itself at: http://lordhanningfield.essexcc.gov.uk/ Mine not to reason why, but personally I’d take Essex - since they appear not to have their knickers in a time-wasting twist and just seem to be getting on with it. A potential nightmare conflict of interest wise, but Lord H seems to be keeping carefully to local questions. If I was him, I’d have my own personal blog as well - otherwise when he loses the election they will change the name of the blog and he will vanish from Google like Mr Gordon from awkward political situations. Tags: lord hanningfield, essex cc, norfolk county council, iain dale

Taking the numbers of Local Councillors from my earlier article, and the population figures, we get: England has 19668 councillors for 50,431,700 people = 2564 per councillor. Northern Ireland 582 has councillors for 1,724,400 people = 2963 per councillor. Scotland has 1222 councillors for 5,094,800 people = 4169 per councillor. Wales has 1264 councillors for 2,958,600 people = 2340 per councillor. A couple of comments from Iain Dale’s thread asking “How many councillors are there?”: >Lots of them… >Whatever the answer is, it is probably too many! The knock about is fair-enough, but I don’t think they mean “too many”; I think that is a proxy for “too much” (i.e., money from my pocket). Efficient, volunteer, Local Councillors who do not take the “p” where allowances are concerned (and there are plenty around), but do take the time to help local people with the problems, are a benefit to any community - and deserve our respect. (more…)

Iain Dale wants to know: How many different forms of councillor there are - ie how many district councillors, how many county councillors etc. I rang the LGA who told me to ring the Office of National Statistics. They had no idea. I’ve tried googling it but no luck. Can anyone help? [Update 12pm. David Boothroyd supplied the gen: As of now at this moment in time: London borough councillors: 1,861 English county councillors: 2,270 Metropolitan borough councillors: 2,555 English unitary authority councillors: 2,407 English lower-tier district councillors: 10,575 Welsh unitary authority councillors: 1,264 Scottish unitary authority councillors: 1,222 Northern Ireland district councillors: 582 Grand total: 22,736 Parish councillors are not counted as principal local authorities but according to the National Association of Local Councils there are nearly 100,000 Parish, town and community councillors in England and Wales. ] Leaving aside that he’s asked 2 different questions: How many types of Councillor. It is not clear whether Town and Parish Councillors are of interest. How many of each type. … five minutes digging reveals the totals not the types. For England for 2006: Over 20,000 elected councillors represent local communities and local people on the 410 local authorities of England and Wales. Employing over two million people, these local councils undertake an estimated 700 different functions. Of which, concerning Wales: There are over 1200 councillors serving on Wales’ 22 all purpose local authorities - these are responsible for ?4 billion of public expenditure which is over one third of the total Welsh budget. There should be a PDF brochure here, but it is on a government-run site so the link is broken. Scotland has 32 councils and 1222 Councillors: The Directory provides a unique one-step source for: All 1222 Councillors You can buy a directory for about ?120. Northern Ireland has 26 local councils and 582 Councillors. That’s the best I can do for now, but for exact numbers I’d be looking at the Boundary Commission for England and their equivalents, not the Local Government Association. Or some commercial databases. I’ll revisit this later today if I have time. Useful Links The Northern Ireland LGA website has a useful breakdown with councillors by council. The BBC Action network has a useful background (not stats) page about Councillors, and one about Parish/Town Councillors (basically they cover street furniture, parks, cemeteries and other “local environment” things.). Tags: statistics, number crunching, local councillors england, local councillors ireland, local councillors scotland, local councillors wales