Stroud District Council is to ask the government to make the ‘illogical and inconsistent’ voting system fairer for residents from overseas, after a Green Party motion was carried by at the full council meeting last night (Thursday December 14).

Of the councillors, 25 voted for the motion and six against. There were 10 abstentions.

The council will now ask the government to extend the right to vote to all overseas nationals who are resident and pay council tax here.

The motion, proposed by Cllr Steve Hynd (Green, The Stanleys) and seconded by Cllr George James (Liberal Democrat, Wotton-under-Edge), calls for the eligibility criteria for foreign nationals to vote in local elections in England to be brought in line with the criteria in Scotland and Wales.

It is a response to the Elections Act 2022, the biggest change of electoral legislation in the last 40 years. The Act has already made photographic voter ID mandatory at the polling station. The next change to be introduced – next summer – is to remove voting rights from some EU citizens.

All EU citizens currently have the right to vote in local elections but under the new law, EU citizens who entered the UK from January 2021 and who are not covered by bilateral voting rights treaties (which apply to Poland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain) will no longer be allowed to vote or stand for election.

Cllr Hynd, pictured, said: “We’re talking about a million people in the UK who are denied the right to vote in local elections. They live, work, study, make use of public services, and call the UK their home. This motion is really simple; it says that Stroud District Council supports people’s right to vote based on where they are registered to live, not where they happen to have been born.

“The new law creates an unequal situation where some EU citizens will have the right to vote while others will not. We need a consistent approach across the UK so that all council taxpayers have the right to vote in council elections. This will bring us in line with the much fairer systems that are used in Scotland and Wales. To call ourselves a modern democracy we need one where people can vote and stand in elections where they live.”

As well as writing to the government, the Council will now work to ensure residents know about the changes and what their rights are – including publicising the voter registration and photo ID requirements – and will aim to ensure that people are not incorrectly removed from the electoral register.

Similar motions have been carried at several other councils, and there is cross-party support from a wide range of mayors and councillors across the country.

• The full text of the motion can be read here

• For more background information about this issue see the Our Home Our Vote campaign here.

The post Councillors approve Green motion demanding fairer voting system for foreign-born residents appeared first on Stroud District Green Party.

Cllr Hynd represents the ward of The Stanleys, which covers Frocester, Stanley Downton, Leonard Stanley, King’s Stanley and Selsley. In November 2021 Cllr Hynd was reassured that the service would go live “in the coming months” and has since then been repeatedly assured that the service would go live, only for deadlines to slip and for emails to go unanswered. In October 2022 Gigaclear assured Cllr Hynd that:

“Stanley Downton and Leonard Stanley will definitely go live in December, one of them maybe November. Selsley West build is likely to be December or January.”

Despite this promise, the communities are still not connected and the latest suggestions from Gigaclear are that the service might go live in March 2023. In the letter Cllr Hynd slammed this poor performance, saying:

“Not only have you failed to deliver this in a timely manner, but you have consistently failed to effectively communicate with myself or the community despite my continued attempts to help and support you in doing so.”

Many residents have contacted Cllr Hynd expressing concerns about the viability of their businesses that have increasingly relied on home working or the frustration at not knowing whether to renew existing broadband contracts.

Cllr Hynd said: “Superfast broadband is a lifeline for many rural communities. It enables businesses to competitively thrive, for schoolwork to be completed efficiently and increasingly for friends and family to stay connected. It’s hugely disappointing then that I have spent the last year chasing Gigaclear. Despite promises coming thick and fast the actual works have progressed at a snail’s pace.”

He continued: “I wrote to the CEO of Gigaclear today not only to try and ascertain a realistic and honest assessment of when the service would go live, but also to get a sincere apology to all those affected in my community. At this stage we need both – a sincere apology combined with a realistic timeline going forward so that my residents can plan effectively”.

The letter is below:

Gareth Williams CEO
Gigaclear Ltd,
Building One,
Wyndyke Furlong,
Abingdon,
Oxon,
OX14 1UQ

13^th January 2022

Dear Gareth Williams,

I wrote to you in February 2022 to express my frustration at both the crucial delays in upgrading the broadband infrastructure in my local community and the poor levels of communications from the customer services team.

I am bitterly disappointed to be writing to you today to inform you that neither have improved. Despite regular misleading promises to the contrary, the communities I represent still don’t have access to an upgraded broadband infrastructure and, realistically, can’t expect to have this in the coming months. The lack of approach from any of your sales team suggests that this view is shared within your company even if it is not communicated to me or my community.

I understand some of the logistical issues you’ve been facing but I honestly struggle to understand the continuing poor levels of communications – even after I have previously made a direct appeal to you to rectify this situation. You will remember that in my last letter I talked about how I was proactively contacted by Josh Verity, the then Community Engagement Manager for the West Region in November 2021. He was supportive and reassuring at the time saying to me:

“Stanley Downton is within the top 5 priority communities to be reissued, there are multiple reasons for this. Not least of which, Stanley Downton is a key infrastructure link for our wider network and under our commitments to Fastershire, we are obligated to build to a large number of the properties within Frocester and the surrounding area.”

As you know from my last letter, I then worked with him on a public statement to reassure residents to this affect. When work clearly failed to happen and we suffered months of ignored emails I was forced to write directly to you. In part because I had put my personal reputation on the line by communicating what your employees had assured me would happen.

I am writing today to express not just my disappointment but my utter dismay that this pattern has repeated itself in the last year.

For example, on the 28^th October 2022, Arron Judd, the now Community Engagement Manager, wrote to myself to say, and I quote, “Stanley Downton and Leonard Stanley will definitely go live in December, one of them maybe November. Selsley West build is likely to be December or January.”

It is now mid-January and Stanley Downton and/or Frocester are not live, and the Selsley West build shows no sign of materialising. The latest I heard, via a colleague in Frocester Parish Council, is that we can expect Frocester and Stanley Downton to go live in March 2023.

Considering that in November 2021 Stanley Downton was one of your “top 5 priority communities to be reissued” this is embarrassingly poor service delivery. Not only have you failed to deliver this in a timely manner, but you have consistently failed to effectively communicate with myself or the community despite my continued attempts to help and support you in doing so.

As such I write today asking for:

1. A realistic breakdown of the timeline for the residents of Frocester, Stanley Downton, Leonard Stanley, King’s Stanley and Selsley to have access to superfast broadband.
2. An apology, not to me, but to all those who live in this community that have been holding off renewing broadband contracts, who have been relying on your services for these businesses and who are, understandably, feeling a great degree of anger.
3. A review to how you work internally to improve the communication channels between your Project Manager and Community Liaison leads and that you stop, as a matter of urgency, delivering promises you are unable or unwilling to keep.

Your work is essential to rural communities like the ones I represent up and down the country. Despite all that has occurred I am still here to offer any support I can in supporting you in delivering this crucial service.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Steve Hynd 

The post Stroud Councillor demands action for rural communities after ‘year of broken promises’ from broadband supplier appeared first on Stroud District Green Party.

“The Bill’s stated aim is to ensure that UK elections remain ‘secure, fair, modern, inclusive and transparent’,” said Cllr Steve Hynd (pictured), deputy leader of the Green group on Stroud District Council. “This sounds like a laudable aim; however, far from extending voting rights and encouraging participation in local elections, the Elections Bill could have quite the opposite effect.”

The most significant and controversial change contained in the bill is the introduction of mandatory photo ID at the polling station. Because many voters – particularly the elderly and the poor – do not have driving licences or passports to show as photographic proof of identity, millions of voters nationally from already underrepresented groups could lose the right to vote.

“An estimated 24% of the electorate don’t have photo ID, and this change would be a particular barrier to voting for many from black, Asian, minority ethnic and working-class communities,” said Cllr Hynd. “Those short on time and money are less likely to have the required paperwork and these plans will make it harder for those already having a tough time to have their say. And, according to the government’s own figures, it would cost up to £20million per general election; what a colossal waste of money.

“The voter ID requirement could lead to an immediate drop in turnout in elections – this is not what a fair and representative democracy looks like.”

Another concern is that the Bill would prevent many EU citizens who live, work and pay tax here from being able to vote and stand in local elections. Until this year, EU citizens have had the right to vote in local elections. The Elections Bill proposes that only those who arrived before 31 December 2020 will still be able to vote – unless the UK happens to have a bilateral agreement with the voter’s country of origin.

This would put England and Northern Ireland out of step with the rest of the UK, as Scotland and Wales allow all legally resident people to vote in local elections.

“These proposals simply further complicate our already confusing election rules and add unnecessary cost,” said Cllr Hynd. “Migrants in the UK, including EU citizens, make up over 10% of the population and they deserve to have a say in local decisions that affect them. We fully support the Young European Network and others in their #OurHomeOurVote campaign, which calls for all residents to be able to vote. This would be a fair approach, one that is easier to implement in practice than the confusing new proposals, and one that would create stronger local communities through enabling everyone to actively participate in local democracy.”

A petition against the proposals can be found here: https://action.electoral-reform.org.uk/page/35710/petition/1

The post Hundreds of local people could lose right to vote under unfair Elections Bill, warn Greens appeared first on Stroud District Green Party.