A LEADING member of the Harlow Green Party has expressed her frustration at not being abel to ask a question at tomorrow night’s special council meeting.

The meeting has been called to discuss having local elections every four years. At the moment, it is by thirds.

Here is the question that Yasmin Gregory was going to ask.

Question for Councillors at a Special Meeting of Council to be held at 7.30pm on Thursday, 2 November 2023 in the Council Chamber, Civic Centre.

In the May 2023 elections, voting turnout, including postal votes, from a total electorate of 64,158, was 16,083 or 25.19%.  

In a document dated 9 December 2021, the Harlow Council Electoral Review Working Group (Lead Officer: Simon Hill) decided not to recommend a public consultation. It cited the following reasons for not proceeding as:

“a) The time constraints of making a decision following a consultation by the end of March; 

b) The Covid-19 pandemic is still ongoing; 

c) Given the results of the survey on turnout in local elections there were concerns that there wouldn’t be enough public appetite for a meaningful result; 

d) A consultation would not be appropriate at the current time; and 

e) There is no current budget for the consultation.” 

The Working Group noted that the possibility of changing to all out elections could be explored at a later date and, indeed, 19 months later it went ahead with a public consultation.

The public consultation was published on the Council’s website and publicised on their social media. An email was also sent to all current polling places and other interested organisations, however, it was not apparent who the interested organisations were.  

Question 1: Please can you confirm who the other interested organisations were who were in receipt of the email and how many of them responded.

The public consultation which took place between 24 July and 18 September (56 days over the school summer holidays) resulted in the Council receiving a total of 491 responses – 444 online and 47 paper responses. 

Question 2:  How much did the consultation which took place between 24 July and 18 September cost?  Was the cost within budget and is this amount available for future years for services and facilities for Harlow’s young people?

Page 4 of the report states that “this is the highest ever response on a consultation on electoral matters.” Of these 491 responses, 467 stated that they live in Harlow, 5 do not live in Harlow and 19 did not answer this question.

467 of 64,158 = 0.727891% or 0.73%

The report quotes that 74% (364) want to change to whole council elections and 26% (127) want to keep elections by thirds.  

364 of 64,158 = 0.567349% or 0.57%.

Question 3:  Could the council provide a comment as to whether 364 people from an eligible group of 64,158 is deemed enough public appetite for a meaningful result.  

I conclude from these results that only half a percent of the Harlow electorate are in favour of changing a system that has been in place for many years and certainly since the first election to the council which was held in 1973, initially operating as a shadow authority alongside the outgoing authorities until the new arrangements came into effect on 1 April 1974.

Question 1: Please can you confirm who the other interested organisations were who were in receipt of the email and how many of them responded.

Question 2:  How much did the consultation which took place between 24 July and 18 September cost?  Was the cost within budget and is this amount available for future years for services and facilities for Harlow’s young people?

Question 3:  Could the council provide a comment as to whether 364 people from an eligible group of 64,158 is deemed enough public appetite for a meaningful result.  

Yasmin Gregory

Harlow Green Party