Transport, education and fracking are key issues in ‘doughnut’ constituency
ONLY COMING into existence in 2010, York Outer could be described as something of a geographical oddity as one of just two constituencies which form a “doughnut” ring around another seat – in this case York Central.
But the lack of a centre is more than just a quirk of the electoral system and highlights the changing way of life for many in the villages that make up its population of 75,000 people.
On a visit to affluent Bishopthorpe, The Yorkshire
Post is told by one local how the village has lost much of its traditional life and identity in recent decades as traditional industries have disappeared and out-of-town supermarkets have taken the trade from local shops.
These days Bishopthorpe is more of a commuter belt village, they suggest, with many residents heading down the A64 to work in Leeds. “It is not the man who gets his push bike out and goes to work any more. He gets his car,” he says.
Despite this, Bishopthorpe has four watering holes on the high street, a local butcher and other independent shops. On a drive through the village around 3pm the main source of activity is parents on their way to pick up their children from the ‘outstanding’ local school named after the Archbishop of York, whose headquarters is just around the corner.
“Generally speaking round here, it is a pretty quiet place, there is nothing that bothers me”, says Bob Taylor, a 62-yearold maintenance engineer. “I am more interested in the bigger picture.”
An enthusiastic Leave supporter, he says he will be voting for “whichever one is more likely to get us through”.
His preference for leaving the EU puts him in a minority in York Outer, one of only two Tory-held seats in Yorkshire where locals voted in favour of Remain in 2016. The split in opinion is summed up by two locals enjoying a pint of ale in The Marcia Inn on Main Street. “For me the whole thing is a denial of democracy,” one says, while the other says: “We are better off in Europe than we were without it.”
Conservative Julian Sturdy, who has held the seat since 2010 and has consistently voted in favour of Brexit deals, concedes that this is the view of locals but adds: “The message I am getting loud and clear is ‘get on with it’. People just want to move on.”
Describing himself as feeling “passionately” about local issues, he says: “The national politics in this election tends to take care of itself a little bit.”
Mr Sturdy describes transport and education as major local issues, with York schools consistently getting less funding than those in London.
“We have some amazing schools in York but they are on a very tight budget,” he says.
On transport he has been campaigning, as yet without success, for the dualling of parts of the A64 and to get a railway station serving the villages of Strensall and Haxby.
“For a city like York transport and infrastucture investment is really important. Congestion is a big issue on the outer ring road which runs right round my constituency.
“I have managed through a long campaign to secure the dualling of the northern ring road, which is fantastic news. It was a big push by the local council to get that. It will make a big difference to a lot of communities.”
With a majority of more than 8,000, Mr Sturdy faces a threeway contest with the Liberal Democrats and Labour to hold onto the seat.
Keith Aspden, who became leader of City of York Council in May as the pro-EU Lib Dems virtually wiped out the Tories, says Brexit is a major talking point on the doorstep. But he is keen to highlight the issues he talks about every day which show “why towns and villages need a better deal”.
“Being council leader and a local councillor gives me the benefit of seeing every day, and for the last 16 years I have been a councillor, some of the issues families face in the area but also the frustration that we can’t solve them locally”, he says.
“A lot of it is about funding nationally and what the Government decides to do. It is about taking that experience and using it nationally.”
Labour candidate Anna Perrett, a local councillor who moved to York in 2005 to study, cites climate change as a major issue and describes the threat to two villages in the constituency from fracking as energy firms have licences to drill nearby.
She says that though York is an affluent city, residents are still affected by the social care crisis and the overstretched NHS. In what she says is an “odd-shaped” constituency, people who want to get from village to village by public transport have to go into the city centre and out again.
“We have lost a lot of services as austerity has bitten, they have gone to the city centre to cut costs,” she says. “People are having to go into the city centre to find services they used to be able to get in villages.”