Broxtowe Boro' Council elections 2019 – Turnout by wards – What does it tell us?

 I have recently got into my head that trying to predict turnouts at elections is more important than trying to predict which parties the electorate will vote for. This is the result of conversations with my grandson, who is into election statistics and mapping the Labour Party's chances of winning power again.

Back in my Wembley South Young Socialist days we were asked to help Party members in Sudbury ward to organise and fight the Borough Elections in 1962. We got a great candidate and fought hard and it was the buzz of the count in Wembley Town Hall that hooked me for life on polling days and election organising. We came close to winning and just a few days ago during a Zoomtalk with Clive, who recruited me into a embryonic YS branch from the Young Liberals (where I went following a Sudbury girl I knew and whose brother remains a close friend and also joined the YS with me), he said he always regretted us canvassing the better off roads. Had we let the would-be Conservative voters sleep through the election campaign we may well have won, and that was the lesson I took away from an exciting election we lost: always fight below the radar. Low turnouts are better for Labour than high turnouts. As simple as that!

I have been a candidate in four elections for the Labour Party  back in the 1970s and 80s. I won two in Birmingham as I expected to and I lost one in Sutton Coldfield, again as I expected to. In Nottingham I won a seat which was marginal and retained it for the Party until the city went unitary. I was also an agent more times than I can recall. I learnt early on that the best campaigning strategy is to select your candidate and to identify your support as soon as possible, then work it by staying in touch and canvassing only new voters and, the final touch, giving personal Party polling card (as we used to before they became official) to all known supporters and to ignore all other voters. I still think this is a good campaigning strategy. I also learnt early on that Labour does better when there are low turnouts and my recent post shows this very well for Nottingham-shire. Parliament's Library has data which also backs up my belief, as these two tables show for the 2017 and 2109 General Elections. In the constituencies with the lowest turnouts Labour won the most seats. I also created a similar graph for Broxtowe Borough Council election in 2019 and, yes, the three lowest turnouts were all in Labour seats. Here is the evidence. I will add a Nottinghamshire County Council 2017 elections graph before too long.*

* UPDATE: This now has its own post. Labour has to hope for low turnouts if it wants to wins seats in the Notts County Council elections due this coming May.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE:

Beeston and Broxtowe HMOs – what was said for me.

Last there was a meeting about HMOs in Beeston and Broxtowe at the Pearson Centre which I didn't attend but my HMO maps was on display, so I was present, well sort of.  Judy Sleath asked me to write a few words about my maps in case anyone asked. She telephoned this morning to tell me that she had read them out and that I should perhaps share what I gave her on this blog, so vanity appealed to, here is what I wrote:

My apologies for not being able to attend this meeting but I hope the 2 maps I have compiled can speak on my behalf but, just in case, here are a few words I have written to help explain my interest in HMOs and council tax exemptions.

It was back in 2015 that I submitted my first Freedom of Information request to Broxtowe Borough Council for information about HMOs and council tax exemptions.

In 2014 I had attended a meeting at Nether Street School about the growing problem of HMOs on Lower Road. I was invited because I lived in Lenton at the time and well aware of what happens when landlords are allowed to turn family homes into HMOs without any monitoring. The result was the wholesale taking over of neighbouhoods, such as the New Lenton Conservation Area where I lived,

My wife and I moved to Lenton in 1979 and by the time we left for Beeston in November 2014 95% of the 105 houses in the Conservation Area were HMOs and there was an Article 4 Direction in place banning any more HMOs in Lenton.

From conversations with Beeston residents and activists it was clear that, whilst there was concern about what was happening, Broxtowe Borough Council did not see a problem — hence my Freedom of Information request and the subsequent publishing of the data I received.

I repeated the request in 2017, 2018 and quite recently for 2019. I missed 2016 because I was seriously ill. On each occasion Council staff have been attentive and very supportive, and they continue to be.

All the information I have received has been placed in the public domain via my Beeston Week blog and shared with the Civic Society.

I am in no doubt that what I have witnessed over the past five years can best be described as the beginning of 'the Lentonisation of Beeston’ — it begins with neighbours noticing what is happening on their street, then it becomes anecdotal as neighbourhoods share their experiences, then the newly arrived HMOs begin to cluster and extend, before what has become a stream turns into torrent and, apart from a few alert councillors like Lynda and Pat Lally, who try to warn their colleagues of what is happening, the Council wakes up one day to the realisation that a whole community has disappeared beneath a flood of HMOs.

By compiling the maps I hope to persuade Broxtowe Borough Council to collect and share data on all HMOs, not just the large ones, so they can compile maps and monitor what is happening in Beeston and across Broxtowe, with a view to encouraging public discussion about the creation of housing policies which include HMOs and controlling them by the introduction of Article 4 Directions where and when necessary.

For the record I spent 21 years working as a regional and national housing officer, managing and developing supported housing for vulnerable tenants, until I retired in 2006.

Good landlords welcome HMOs, as do their tenants. Housing is too important to be left to self-regulation and chance.

Finally, as you look at the 2 maps, please read the text panels as they explain in some detail how I compiled them.

Robert Howard, 6 November 2019.

JUDY: If asked, you can say I worked for Advance Housing and Support, a registered housing association.

Understanding HMOs — a Nottingham Manual and learning from others

The fact that Broxtowe Borough Council is taking an interest in Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), thanks to its recently elected Labour/Liberal council, is to be celebrated.

I had hoped they would spend the rest of 2019 gathering together what data they already have, whilst delving deeper into their records for even more. The fact that I have not asked for such data, even though I know it exists, is because I have been, and remain, mindful of the extra workload I place on diligent council officers who get the job of responding to my Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

To give you just one example. The Council's student council tax exemption form requires the property owner applying for the exemption to list the names of the tenants/occupants of the property in question as I show below (click on image to enlarge):

The owner is not always a landlord. Parents of students buy houses for their children or the students buy them. For some the fact that they become landlords is almost accidental. 'Our Mark can live with his friends, they can all have a room each, and they can help pay the mortgage and running costs too'. 

A landlord, on the other hand, is always on the lookout for a chance to make money. His move into renting out houses to students is calculated. Look at the form below. My next FOI will ask for the number of names on every student council tax exemption form (not individual names). This will enable me to say how many of the exemptions are for small, unregistered, HMOs and how many are for large HMOs (the latter should equal the number of HMO Register entries, excluding the exceptions). The following pages from Nottingham City Council's HMO Manual should help you understand the process. Broxtowe Borough Council should be publishing something similar.

Remember, Nottingham also require small HMOs to register. Broxtowe doesn't.

Let's turn the £1m plus cost of student council tax exemptions in Broxtowe to the advantage of everyone by putting £2m annually into housing for young people in Broxtowe

Reading my headline you may think that I have gone mad but hear me out. 

The first thing to say is what I'm proposing will mean landlords paying council tax at 100% on presently council tax exempt student properties. This would bring in c.£1m — a sum already paid by existing council tax payers to cover the shortfall. That money would continue to be collected as a young persons' housing precept, which added to the £1m from landlords, would create an annual income of c.£2m towards housing located in Broxtowe Borough for young people (who would have family/work links and students).

Rent charges suggest that landlords, for the most part, do not share their council tax exemption with their tenants. It is money most of them pocket (this claim is based on looking at weekly rent charges on Zoopla  and Rightmove websites today - £81pw for a room in a student let; £156pw for a 3 bed family semi is just one example - a student let would probably be at least 4 beds and, potentially, double the income from the house remaining a family let). ALL landlords should have to give every tenant an annual statement of what they do with the rent they charge: where the rent goes; the amount of any mortgage and the repayment terms; maintenance costs, repairs etc.

This annual £2m pot would help cover the loan costs of capital borrowed to build suitable housing for young people located throughout the Borough of Broxtowe. The housing would be managed by a housing co-op much like that already envisaged by students.

It is a win-win situation for everyone. Family housing can be protected by planning from landlords, who buy to let and, in the process, drive up prices. Older residents benefit because streets keep families and neighbourhoods are more balanced than they might otherwise be. Young people and students get purpose built housing which they manage as a co-op and it can take account of housing needs across Broxtowe Borough, not just in Beeston.

To those who say I’m living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, I would point out that change has to start somewhere so why not Broxtowe? and if there can be council precepts for business (ie. Beeston), town councils and parishes why not housing? Money ring fenced, as this money would be, would, I believe, attract support from across the whole community.

Initially, there would be lost council tax, but the council tax being paid by other previous exempt groups would cover this and within two years maximum the council would begin to receive additional council tax income from the new houses being occupied by young Broxtowe residents and students. The idea not only builds homes for young people but generates council tax income.

I can hear other voices saying you'll have to change the law to remove some of the council tax exemptions. With an existing high-profile MP and Greg Marshall in the wings waiting to take over, both have the skills and nous to persuade central government to make an exception of Broxtowe on a pilot basis — this kind of thing happens all the time. It could even be done by Parliamentary Bill.

Having spent 21 years of my life as a supported housing manager, preparing budgets and development briefs, I know what I’m proposing is viable, manageable, and something which can help resolve in some small part the housing need which exists in Beeston and across Broxtowe.

If you think my idea is rubbish then I challenge to come with a better, more affordable, viable solution and share it.

National Audit Office's local government financial data including Broxtowe invites as many questions as it answers, so let's have a council budget 'Teach-in Day'

The National Audit Office has published a report, Financial sustainability of local authorities: (a) 2018 visualisation, relating to local government finances covering the period 2010/11 – 2016/17. Unfortunately it is all percentages and not actual amounts of money. On the plus side you can compare Broxtowe with Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Council, albeit very different beasts. I have extracted some data which I will turn into tables over the next few days.

In the meantime if you have missed this story in the news media or don't have a weblink, follow this link.

The following quote from the report's introduction delivers the message loud and clear. It is that local government and local communities who have paid the price of the financial crisis, together with those on low incomes, the vulnerable and disadvantaged. To all these people local services matter!

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government measures the impact of reducing government funding on local authority income via ‘revenue spending power’. This indicator captures the main streams of government funding to local authorities alongside council tax. We found that nationally revenue spending power fell by 28.6% in real terms from 2010-11 to 2017-18. If council tax is removed, our analysis shows that government funding fell in real terms by 49.1% from 2010-11 to 2017-18.

Here is a comparative table (click on table to enlarge).

If I had the time I would request the financial data which has been used to compile these percentages (which all appear in the report). There has been talk of Broxtowe Borough Council's financial problems. What this comparative suggests is that Broxtowe appears to be in no worse position than Nottingham or the county council.

Notice how percentage reserves have increased and you can see why this data matters in money terms. I will have a look at Broxtowe. What the figures do show is that Nottinghamshire County Council has a far lower level of reserves (in percentage terms) than Broxtowe and Nottingham, which probably helps explain the enthusiasm among some county councillors for the creation of a unitary county council (an idea since dropped, for the time being at least).

That said, the county council spends (in percentage terms) 64.6% of its budget on adult & child social care, whereas the city spends 54.5%. At this rate, as the news media tells us every few days (so it seems), the county and city will soon have little money to spend on anything else!  

Some the data is less complete for comparative purposes so I will just refer to Broxtowe when it comes to loss of Government funding and spending power.

Between 2010/11 and 2017/18 Government funding to Broxtowe fell by 62.9% and, as I understand it, will continue to fall until it reaches 0%. I'm sure when this will happen. In real times this equals 42.6% and council tax lost 3.2% of its spending power in Broxtowe during the same period.

It gives me a headache just trying to comprehend what is actually happening. We all need to understand because it is that important!

Perhaps the Labour Party might like to organise a kind of 'Council Budget Teach-in Day' a few weeks before the Borough Council elections (one day in Beeston/Stapleford and one day in Eastwood/Kimberley) with stalls and data based on services. It could well attract much need media attention!

For council tenants there could be a stall with info on 'Where does you rent go?' looking at the housing budget.  Another for leisure and parks. Then there's Environmental Services. You get the idea. Once in power the Borough Council can take over the days.

Residents can be asked for their views so that changes can be planned for. Holding budget consultations in October/November is far too late and only serves to show how little interest have in their own 'public consultation'! 

Broxtowe Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) Register and its missing entries.

Today I received an updated copy of Broxtowe's HMO Register and I had been expecting to see a flood of new registrations given, to quote the Council's own website, that 'From 1st October 2018 all HMO's with five or more occupiers forming two or more households regardless of the number of storeys will be subject to HMO licencing. If you own or manage a HMO that meets the criteria for mandatory licencing you must apply for a licence before 1st October 2018'.

I think the above is pretty clear by any measure, yet here we are, over three months later, and just 2 two storey households have been registered! In the absence of an answer to the question how many applications there are outstanding I assume there are none, although I have data from another Council department which suggests there could be a great many unregistered properties with five or more occupiers which should have applied for HMO registration and haven't.

Nottingham city Council say they backdate applications, yet Broxtowe says a ‘renewal cannot be backdated’ despite acknowledging that applications are received without supporting documentation. If landlords/agents know this is Broxtowe’s policy then many will submit incomplete applications! For them it’s a win win situation which involves people has to involve Council employees in more work! As a policy it doesn’t make any sense!

HMO Registration is just one part of a jigsaw Broxtowe Borough Council has, in my opinion, wilfully ignored despite the cost and the extra burden this places upon the wider community.

It is beyond my comprehension as to why there have not been reports to the Council about the matter. Why have so many councillors chosen to ignore the problem?

These are questions which need answers!

I will be disappointed if I cannot do a post on Friday as to income lost because of council tax exemptions and a lax HMO registration p[olicy.

Watch this space. 

Map showing Council Tax Band 'A' charges in Broxtowe Borough and Nottingham City councils.

A map which speaks for itself. Beeston Band 'A' council tax payers transferring from Broxtowe borough Council to Nottingham City Council will, at the 2018/2019 charge rate, pay an extra £71 per annum, assuming the City Council's unitary charge matches the £885 levied by Nottinghamshire County Council onto Beeston Band 'A' council tax payers.

Usual thing, click on map /table to enlarge

I created the Council Tax chart below in August 2018:

The Broxtowe Council Tax charges are as for Beeston. As the above map shows these charges vary across Broxtowe because of charges levied by town and parish councils. 

Because Beeston's services are provided by two councils there has to be additional admin charges. By Beeston joining Nottingham there will only be one council managing council services and we should be as beneficiary of this.

A new graphic Beeston - Broxtowe - Nottingham ward map – a work in progress

I still have some graphic tweaking to do but I think the motorway and the railway lines are self evident. The orange lines show where buses go to and from Beeston including Derby Road and Queens Road as both are in Beeston wards and its historic parish. One thing is startling clear — no buses go to the north of Broxtowe Borough.

Once you start looking at Beeston in relation to Broxtowe Borough it becomes clear that the links with Nottingham are social, historic, cultural, economic, and with Nottingham University too. 

Yet another important link between Beeston and Nottingham is the new proposed Parliamentary constituency of Nottingham West AND Beeston. The fact that boundary commissioners accept the link adds weight to the argument that come the demise of Broxtowe Borough Council Beeston should join with the already unitary Nottingham City Council and not the proposed unitary Nottinghamshire Country Council.

The other great advantage of joining with Nottingham (given that Broxtowe Borough Council's days are limited — hence the Conservatives supporting Nottinghamshire County Council's plan to merge with all the county's district councils to create a unitary council) is that the City Council is already a unitary council and for Beeston to join the City will save a whole load of money.

Over the coming days and weeks I will develop my arguments, even get a banner made of this map and it spin-offs. I believe maps and graphics make the case I am arguing easier to understand.

Comments welcome.  I am planning to add ward electorate numbers and Band 'A' council tax rates (the largest band).

I hope you find this map interesting. Updates will follow next week. For the next few days I have other things I need to do.

Robert Howard

Nottingham West & Beeston has the makings of Britain's largest Parliamentary constituency

On 27 October 2011 I gave evidence in person, at their invitation, to the Boundary Commission for England then in the process of carrying out a Parliamentary review. At the time their own proposal for the Greater Nottingham area looked like this (click on the map to enlarge):

I took their map and drew my own lines in blue and red so that it was easier to see their proposals.

I lived in Lenton in 2011 and the BC proposed a new 'Nottingham South & West Bridgford constituency' — which the national Labour Party did not oppose, but many local Party members like myself did. Our MP, Lilian Greenwood, asked me to see if I could come up with some alternative proposals — which I did.

The BC final recommendations were published in 2015 and had been changed to create a Nottingham South West and Beeston constituency. I like to think that my written evidence and the address I made in person influenced their decision. Here is what I said on 27 October 2011 in Derby:

'My Nottingham South West & Beeston proposed constituency.

I live in Lenton, which is a thriving inner-city community with its own ward and councillors (thanks to the efforts of local residents like myself and the support of some local councillors and our then MP). 

As a community we actually gravitate south west to Nottingham University and Beeston. We are very much like the neighbouring ward of Wollaton East & Lenton Abbey, insomuch as in each ward some 70% of local residents are in full-time education and there are far more private landlords than there are owner-occupiers. We share the same bus routes (there is a bus every 2 minutes between Nottingham city centre, Lenton, Beeston and Chilwell)… The two main Nottingham University campuses are in Wollaton East and Lenton Abbey ward. The large Lenton Industrial Estate and the Boots complex straddle the Beeston – Lenton border.

I and countless others go to south west to Beeston or to the city centre to shop and socialise. We rarely go to West Bridgford, unless it is to a football or cricket match'.

The 2015 proposals died a death and when the next consultations began I was about to have major surgery and needed what energy I had to get through a day! The good news for me at the time was that the BC stuck with the idea of pulling Beeston into Nottingham South and many of the comments submitted supported the idea that Beeston should join Lenton and the city, rather than remain part of Broxtowe. Below is an extract from the BC's final recommendations map published earlier this week. There is a link to the BC's map here (click on the map to enlarge):

I admit to being fair chuffed at what I said, together with the evidence I submitted, in 2011 has stuck. At the time I was the only person who suggested pulling Beeston into Nottingham South. A few others submitted evidence in 2011 supporting my proposal.

I have to admit that I had lost track of what was happening, despite a couple of previous posts to Beeston Week about the Parliamentary boundary changes (see May 2015 and September 2016 posts).

A Labour Party member on Saturday asked 'What will this mean for Greg Marshall, the Party's prospective candidate for Broxtowe at the next general election?

Well, the proposals have to be adopted by Parliament before they come into effect at the next general election which, if Parliament runs its full term, will be 2022. However with 50 MPs disappearing that might persuade them to vote down the Government's support for the changes. After all the last set of proposals died a death, so why not these?

Labour politicians say that the proposed changes favour the Conservatives (which appears to be true) but the present constituency boundaries favour Labour and the SNP. What you get with a numbers based first past the post voting system is rough justice. Nottingham West and Beeston, as the new proposed constituency is named, is one of the larger ones in terms of numbers, despite that fact that should the student vote ever be persuaded to register, then we could be looking at a constituency of c.90,000 voters, the largest in England, if not Britain!

Now back to Greg Marshall. He could just move with Broxtowe and lose Beeston whilst gaining Hucknall and Lilian Greenwood loses Clifton and gains Beeston. It seems fair and simple enough and, in all honesty, I would have no problem with supporting Lilian, but I don't like the idea of Labour Party members having no direct say in who they choose as their prospective candidate, be it a council or a Parliamentary election — which means having open selection contests in every new constituency. A constituency wide vote as to whether Lilian gets it without a selection contest could result in a good few Beeston Labour Party members feeling less than happy at having no real say in who gets to be their candidate at the next (2022?) election.

Ideally I want this set of Boundary Commission for England proposals to die a death like the 2015 proposals. The best way for this to happen is a snap general election and, given the present state of things, it could happen!

I have been in the Labour Party since just before my 16th birthday in 1960 and, since 1961, a supporter of proportional representation. As I have said before I will accept the same 'added member system' as they use in Scotland and Wales, despite believing Party lists are anti-democratic from a voter's perspective.

I also think MPs should be elected for Parliamentary constituencies based on district and unitary council boundaries topped up to c.600 MPs by added MPs to ensure political parties which do not win seats under first past the post, but win lots of votes nationally, get a level of representation which fairly reflects that vote, but this is an argument for another day.

Right now I'm pleased with the outcome (if we have to have the unfair voting system we have). It has been a long time coming!

Where would draw the line if you were creating a council to replace Broxtowe Borough Council?

Over the past week I have had about a dozen conversations about the future of Beeston and Broxtowe. Not one person has opted to become part of a unitary Nottinghamshire local authority comparable to Nottingham City Council in status. Most agree with me that Broxtowe as a council has never made sense. Several have mentioned joining up with Long Eaton (and by default, Erewash Borough Council). Given the close working relationship there has been between the two councils (sharing backroom services and staff) it is an idea with some merit if the cross-county nature of such a council could overcome those who see county boundaries as set in stone.

'Erewash stretches from Little Eaton to Long Eaton'. The impression this creates is rather different to the geographical reality. Like Beeston and Eastwood, the two places have no direct link unless you follow rivers. In other words, as presently defined Erewash makes no more sense than Broxtowe, but what the map below shows is that a council centred on the Erewash Valley would make geographical sense and from this follows political sense.

If you don't want to go in with Nottingham even though we are part of the same conurbation, then you have to look for links, and geography and the urban area to the west and and north-west of Beeston offer an option. The question is where would you draw the lines if you were trying to keep Beeston separate from Nottingham?

Click on the map to enlarge.

Over the next week I will add some data about council tax, population and registered voters for Erewash, Broxtowe and Nottingham.

I remember a Labour and community activist whilst Liberals grab the margins from the centre and Labour flounders

A FORENOTE:

Since I made this post the following news story has been posted on The Guardian website about Clive Lewis, Jon Cruddas and other Labour Party members arguing that the Party needs to be part of a progressive alliance if it wants to defeat the Conservatives - not expelling members who do!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/07/labour-mps-revive-campaign-for-progressive-alliance?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

ORIGINAL POST BEGINS HERE:

The Labour Party in Broxtowe and nationally should look at the numbers from the BBC News website  below and tremble. The Party floundered and nearby Derby encapsulated why. The Council has appeared disconnected from local people for a long time. Watching their councillors on East Midlands Today over the years it will not surprise me if Derby goes the way of Mansfield. Another good example of how bad Labour can be. We have to learn from these things.

I am the first to recognise and accept that broad sweeps such as I am making capture the good  as well as the bad and indifferent; those Labour councillors who by sheer dint of effort keep voters loyal even in bad times; the Party members who are part of a wide spectrum of community groups and voluntary organisations. Right now such people appear exceptional when they are what we should all try to be - part of the community working alongside others regardless of politics, faith, race, gender, age. 

The results also contain the message that Labour is vulnerable to a Liberal resurgence. Soubry wants a soft Brexit and as it draws ever closer, so do a great many Labour Party members and supporters - and the Liberals are chasing the votes of Remainers/soft-Brexiteers and winning. 

Soubry is astute. We all know, thanks to the numbers game played at Westminster, she is worth a dozen other MPs when it comes to Brexit and Broxtowe voters know this. Having an MP at Westminster who counts is attractive and MPs win because of this. Notoriety beats Party time and again across the political spectrum.

Soubry has learnt when to keep quiet. Labour lost in Broxtowe because it fell into a trap of its own making.

The Labour Party habitually plays to what it believes to be its core support, all that it needs to cross the finishing line first. So much of what the Party blames the Conservatives for can be tracked back to the Labour governments of Blair and Brown. The Liberals by getting into bed with Cameron cannot escape their role in the demise of meaningful democracy.

Be it housing, health, defence, border control, austerity, law and oder, student fees, community involvement, local democracy, Labour got there first. It spent it years in office brown-nosing big business and Little Englanders because it wanted to out-Tory the Tories. I’m sure you do not need me to list examples of these painful truths. Voters know this and, understandably, reject the copy in favour of the real deal.

During the 3 plus years I have lived in Beeston I cannot recall one example of community engagement by the Labour Party. There is talk of what the Party wants to do FOR people, but never of what it wants to do WITH local residents and groups.

I am mindful and critical because I believe Labour Party members should be active in their neighbourhoods and communities. Canvassing is not the same as being involved. Party members who give their time freely are as much community volunteers as others in faith, age or gender based groups, yet they accept being set apart. In my experience councils for/of voluntary service behave like an alternative establishment and are self-serving.

Last Tuesday, 1st May, I attended a remembrance gathering in Lenton for Mairi Yuill,  a lifelong Labour Party member and community activist, a peace campaigner, a former city and county councillor loved and respected across Lenton.  I was one of three people asked by her family to say a few words. I spoke about her community involvement, having spent some 35 years working  alongside her. A close friend and ex-neighbour (Chris Richardson) spoke about her Labour Party work. Mairi died aged 95 in a Beeston nursing home, where she spent her last few months. I saw not long before she passed on, having promised her tea and cake in the Local not Global Deli. It was not to be.

Mairi at work in The Lenton Centre Office,

March 2008

My eulogy for Mairi on 1st May was as follows:

I am extremely touched by Deborah’s invitation to say a few words in remembrance of  Mairi.

For a good few of us here today this is a familiar place when it comes to remembering Mairi, because this where she held her 70th and 80th birthday parties. Was there a 60th? I wish I could remember.

Deborah told me ‘The biggest thing I learned from my mum is that I personally can make a difference, and never to accept the status quo if it is unfair’.

I found a reference to Mairi the Nottingham News No.75, dated October 1975 (which was published by striking NUJ members involed in a year long dispute with the Nottingham Post), describing Mairi and the late Peter Price as anti-establishment councillors.

Unsigned as it is, knowing Mairi and Peter from all those years ago, I do not doubt its veracity.

When Susan and I arrived in Lenton in 1980 and started going to Labour Party meetings Mairi  quickly recruited me as a volunteer for the then Lenton Community Association, which managed Lenton Community Centre. The Centre opened in February 1979 and Mairi had been secretary of its founding steering committee. Over the years, we worked on many projects together, including the creation of the Dunkirk and Lenton Partnership Forum in 1996 and the first campaign to save the Lenton Leisure Centre in 1994. There was one more in 1999, then again in 2004 before, in early- 2006, the City Council sold the building to the Association for £10 and it became The Lenton Centre. 

How many remember the community shop on Osmaston Street, where you could find Mairi most mornings during the 1990s.

From 1981–85 we were Labour Party county councillors together, both of us having previously been city councillors (Mairi in Nottingham, me in Birmingham). How could I not want to work alongside a person who believed to be a Labour Party member it was not enough to put up posters, knock on doors, deliver leaflets or run election campaigns, you had be part of the community as well and Mairi was certainly that.

After The Lenton Centre took over Mairi did not retire, as she could have reasonably done. After all she was 82. Instead she she joined the Board of Directors and took on a day job of sorts, going into the office most days of the week to help look after the accounts and membership records. It was where I usually got to chat with Mairi on the couple of day a week I visited the Centre and I took the photograph of Mairi I am proudest of — sitting at a desk working. She never stopped.

Mairi paid me and Susan the compliment of asking us to look after the records of Lenton Community Association when it transferred all its assets to The Lenton Centre. In 2016 we deposited all the files, together with our own, in Nottinghamshire Archives. At some time in the future when someone comes to write a new history of Lenton I’m sure Mairi will be there centre page, along with other Lenton heroes such as Lesley Fyffe and Jenny Hills. For my own part I can honestly say that whenever Mairi asked me to help in some way I did.

After we left Lenton for Beeston at the end of 2014 Susan and I saw very little of Mairi. Health problems took charge of our lives, but then we got some good news from Deborah; that Mairi was coming to live in Beeston within yards of our favourite cafe, so at the end of February just gone I called in at her new home and saw Mairi, promising to return, but before I could Mairi passed on. We never did have the tea and cake I promised her.

Mairi will be remembered with love and affection by all us, of that I am sure.

By their deeds you shall know them.

Robert Howard
1 May 2018.

Mairi, 2nd left, at the first Lenton Centre Board of Directors meeting. Not everyone shown.

Mairi, June 2004, at the 25th anniversary celebrations for Lenton Community Centre, with Jenny Hills to her left and Dennis Jones, Lord mayor and a former Lenton resident, to her right.

Mairi working on Lenton Community Centre's stall in the Old Market Square sometime in the 1990s when all Nottingham's community centres game together to promote their activities. In 2002 there were 46(!) community centres in the City.

Mairi takes notes at a small meeting in the Lenton Community Centre Office in the 1980s. Derek in the middle lived in the flats and founded a very successful lunch club in the Centre which ran for many years. Sadly he passed on a good few years ago. Glenn Trickey was our City Council paid Warden for many years. Probably the best community worker I've known. He was with us on 1st May.

An e-mail to my MP Anna Soubry — Why the NHS, housing (and general wellbeing) needs a bipartisan approach — and the reply

As  you can see I sent the e-mail below two weeks ago come tomorrow. In the absence of a reply I have to assume my MP has no interest in a bipartisan approach to our NHS and the even greater housing crisis which has bedevilled us for decades. In fairness Ms Soubry is not alone. Many other MPs, including Labour, want to keep the NHS and housing party political. It is not a view I've ever shared.

From: Robert Howard <robert@parkviews.org.uk>
Date: 9 January 2018 at 5:54:09 pm GMT
To: anna.soubry.mp@parliament.uk
Subject: NHS, housing (and general wellbeing) needs a bipartisan approach

Hello Ms Soubry

First, please forgive this long email, but please bear with me.

You write in your latest e-letter  'We really do have to grasp the challenges our NHS and social care system face. Extra money is important but so too are better systems and integration.' Over 40 years ago Old Boot, an English sheepdog character in the Daily Mirror strip cartoon 'The Perishers' said of a comment: 'As a statement it cannot be faulted for its accuracy, but it hardly throws a blinding flash of illumination on the dark mysteries of the universe (or in this case the NHS and social care).

I have long held the view that the NHS (and social care) needs a bipartisan approach involving politicians of all political parties, health workers, regardless of their status, the voluntary sector, related businesses and the general public, and that we need some kind of national convention to come up with a framework which supports local innovation and diversity alongside standards and a funding formula based on some kind of  health & care tax/charge, which also covers dentistry and eyesight (hearing is still part of the NHS, whereas the other two cost considerably more than many can afford).

I would also argue that housing needs to be considered as part of our health and social care system, because lack of decent housing impacts on personal wellbeing, and lack of wellbeing feeds into health needs big time (alcohol, drugs, diet, mental health and so the list could go on).

You are well placed to argue the case for a national convention to consider health care and related issues in the widest sense, perhaps suggesting that someone like Graham Allen could chair it (we live in an age when 'experts' rule when we what we need are sensible adjudicators who come to a problem not thinking they know the answers). He was an able honest MP with capabilities not utilised because he was a bit of a maverick - which is how I regard you.

Less than 12 months ago I had open heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic heart valve I was born with 73 years ago and 3 weeks ago my wife had a mastectomy after a recurrence of breast cancer after 11 years, so we both know the value and quality of the NHS first hand.

Between 1971 and 2006 when I retired I worked for two voluntary health care charities. BPAS Development Officer and Regional Manager/Head of Housing Management Advance Housing & Support (mental health/learning disability support), and chaired a community health council for six years, so I have a personal interest in health related issues and the local historian in me rate the provision of municipal housing in the 20th century as a greater achievement than the creation of the NHS.

I was lucky enough to grow up in the post-war period when, it can be argued, there was a (albeit competitive) bipartisan approach to health and housing by political parties. Public buildings all around us attest to this fact.

If I have a political wish for the future this is it!

Robert Howard
Beeston NG9 2PJ

PS. Brexit has to treated as a political beast with a life of its own and not one which we are all in thrall to at the expense of all else (ie. health, care, housing).

AN E-MAIL REPLY DATED 24 JANUARY 2018:

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your email and apologies for the delay in replying.

Anna very much supports the introduction of some sort of bipartisan commission or body for the NHS. At this stage Anna would be open as to exact nature of this commission and looks forward to considering proposals put forward by her colleagues and others. Anna sends both you and your wife her very best wishes, and would like to thank you for your work in this field.

Please be assured that this Government intends to significantly increase the number of houses being built. That is why the Government has committed to a total of at least £44 billion of capital funding, loans and guarantees to support the housing market over the next five years which will help deliver 300,000 net additional homes a year on average by the mid-2020s.

I hope this provides you with some reassurance.

Best wishes,

Emily
Emily Horner I Parliamentary Assistant to the Rt Hon Anna Soubry I Member of Parliament for Broxtowe.