Council is urged to reconsider transport charges
– with five of the six councillor spots – for a decade now.
The wards to watch this year are Garforth and Swillington in the east, and in the south of the city, the inner city Beeston and Holbeck ward.
In Garforth, the independent charge is led by former cabinet refuse chief Mark Dobson, who defected from Labour to go independent, and has been running an energetic – and at times ruthless – campaign.
He is part of a quintet of ex Labour councillors – the others include his sister and his partner – who are hoping to shake things up on the east side of the city.
In Beeston and Holbeck, meanwhile, the highly controversial prostitution managed zone could well be a factor at the ballot box.
A trio of independent candidates are standing in protest at the zone, and the impact it is claimed to be having on families living in the surrounding areas.
In total across the city, 334 candidates are standing in 33 different wards, an average of 10 per ward.
As well as the big four (Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green) and the various independent candidates, there is a smattering of fringe party candidates including from The Yorkshire Party, and a number of trade union affiliated parties fighting on a primarily anti austerity ticket. The newly formed For Britain Movement is fielding six candidates, and UKIP is putting up just seven. In total, 20 different party names will appear on Leeds voters’ ballot papers on May 3.
That variety is something Stewart Golton, who leads the Lib Dem group on Leeds City Council and is a candidate in the Rothwell ward, welcomes.
He notes that in a standard ‘one third of seats’ year, the choices presented are “very binary”, because people only have one vote.
But he sees the all-out elections as offering “potential for a more positive vote”, because people have three votes each and “are more relaxed about taking a chance”.
“It’s risky for the main parties to rely on their core vote. They can get complacent. There will be some nervous councillors out there,” he says.
He notes the city was “caught by surprise” in 2004 and it could happen again, especially as people are currently “disillusioned with their Westminster representatives” and “the local landscape will matter more”.
Turnout will, of course, be a factor in the final result.
The last Leeds council election was in 2016, a month before the EU referendum. But while the turnout for the referendum was 70 per cent in Leeds, the citywide turnout for the local elections was just 34.5 percent, with just 185,616 people voting out of a total electorate of 538,012. Every seat contested was held by the incumbent party.
The lowest turnout of 23 per cent was in Hyde Park, a studentheavy area. But even in working class Labour heartlands like Hunslet and Middleton, turnouts were just 25 per cent. The highest turnouts were in more affluent districts, in Otley and Yeadon (a Lib Dem stronghold) with 45.1 per cent, and Adel and Wharfedale (dominated by the Tories) with 45.5 per cent. AN INFLUENTIAL committee has urged North Yorkshire County Council’s leadership to reconsider a blueprint to charge special needs and disabled (SEND) pupils for school transport, as it emerged the authority is facing a 275 per cent rise in the cost of providing the service.
The council’s executive has been told its range of proposed cost-cutting measures would achieve “inconsequential” savings while hitting the poorest and most vulnerable residents.
Its transport, economy and environment overview and scrutiny committee heard a change in legislation had led to a 66 per cent rise in the number of SEND pupils aged over 18 using the service, but the council had received no additional government funding.
Jane Le Sage, the council’s assistant director of inclusion, added the rise in SEND pupil numbers and the fact they were travelling further distances to schools and colleges in England’s largest county had led to predictions that the council’s bill for the service would spiral from £8m in 2017 to £30m in 2025.
She said the council had overspent by £3m on the service this year alone.
Following a public consultation, proposals for £490 a year contributions from SEND post-16 to 18 students – to bring charges into line with those for mainstream pupils – and to increase parents’ allowances for taking SEND students to school from 30p to 45p a mile were put before the committee.
The former proposal would save about £57,000 by 2021 and the latter change would see £750,000 annual savings if 50 per cent of parents took up the increase allowances offer.
Committee chairman, Coun Mike Jordan, described the savings as “small beer” compared to the projected £30m bill.
Councillor Robert Heseltine joined other members in calling for the council’s leaders to review their priorities to help the SEND pupils’ families, saying they were “in desperate need of assistance”.