Behind the lines: The politics behind Bradford's boundary review

The leader of the Green Party Group on Bradford Council lifts the lid ...

Every so often, the Local Government Boundary Commission take a look at the political map of each council to make sure the internal boundaries are still the best fit for the area.

Nearly 18 months ago, it decided it was time to reassess Bradford – as well as all the councils across West Yorkshire, with the exception of Leeds. The last time this happened was in 2004.

A lot has changed in Bradford in the last 20 years. Bradford Council has given permission for thousands of new houses – mostly in the north of the district – meaning the wards are more uneven in size than ever before.

To demonstrate the scale of the issue, the Bingley Rural ward, which covers the villages of Cottingley, Denholme, Wilsden, Harden and Cullingworth, had 14,597 people eligible to vote living in it.

Compare this to the Wharfedale ward, which covers Menston and Burley, where there are only 9,525. Why should one part of our district have nearly 50% more people living in it than the other?

This is the most extreme example in the Bradford District, but ultimately, it means some residents have more representation than others.

So, after a number of consultations with Bradford Council, councillors, political parties and the public, the Boundary Commission has published its final proposals.

The northernmost areas of the Bradford District will see some of the biggest changes. For the Boundary Commission, two problems needed to be resolved. Firstly, the Wharfedale ward, as already mentioned, was too small. Secondly, the Craven ward (Steeton with Eastburn, Silsden and Addingham) was far too big.

To make matters worse, if left unchanged, Craven was due to get even bigger in the next few years because our Labour-run council has kept approving new houses in the area, despite local concerns as voiced by the local Green Party councillors.

To resolve that issue, the Boundary Commission has proposed moving Addingham into the Ilkley Ward and moving part of Ben Rhydding into Wharfedale Ward. This creates three more balanced wards.

It’s not ideal for the residents of Ben Rhydding, who will now be split between two wards. But the Boundary Commission, which is politically neutral, was clear that there was no real credible alternative to this.

The only other option put forward was to move Eldwick into Wharfedale ward, which would have created an unwieldy behemoth separated by miles of moorland. In the distant past, this was roughly the footprint of what was the Rombalds ward, which was broken up at the last review because it was widely agreed that it did not work.

This review was the perfect opportunity to make sure the existing ward boundaries work for residents. But, frustratingly, the Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley opted to waste the commission’s time by using his proposal to argue that the district needs to be split in two.

It was obvious that this was not the time or the place to make that point. The Boundary Commission was very clear at the start of the process that they were only allowed to look at the internal boundaries and could not make a recommendation to create a new council.

This suggestion seems even more pointless following the recent announcement that the new Labour government is due to embark on a massive programme to merge local authorities across the country.

The Greens have argued that decisions need to be made as close to residents as possible, so it’s frustrating that Labour is following the last Conservative government’s lead by centralising even more power, meaning residents have even less say.

But, back to the boundary review in the Bradford District. Sadly, this was not the only attempt by the political parties to “gerrymander” what was supposed to be a politically unbiased process.

For those who haven’t heard of the term gerrymandering before, it’s the political manipulation of electoral boundaries to advantage a specific party, nearly always at the expense of the local community.

The Conservatives were not the only party engaged in this. Labour also had an attempt at gerrymandering elsewhere in other parts of our district. Most oddly, they proposed breaking up the Tong ward – my ward – a ward that has changed the least since 1974 when Bradford Council was formed.

It was also the only ward in the district that had always voted Labour up until 2021, when I was elected as its first Green councillor. Every year since the community has voted Green in ever-increasing numbers.

So, to try and rig the next election, the Labour Party proposed splitting the community in Bierley between the Tong ward and the Wyke ward, drawing a line down the centre of the community.

I know the community in Bierley is relieved the Boundary Commission saw through this cynical attempt by Labour to move the electoral goalposts rather than be better and work to persuade the community to vote for them.

By now, some of you probably thinking, “well he is going to say all this isn’t he?”. But, throughout this process, the Green Party have tried to support the process fairly. At the end of the day, political parties fall in and out of favour regardless of where you draw the boundaries.

In every one of our submissions – which are available to read online if you wish – the Green Party made proposals that sought to keep communities together while making sure the wards were as equally sized as possible.

The Local Government Boundary Commission actually acknowledged this when it accepted our proposals for Bradford South almost entirely as we presented them.

Now, the new ward boundaries are not perfect, but the wards will be much more evenly sized than now.

The new boundaries will take effect at the next local elections in 2026, when all 90 councillors are up for election. Until then, your current councillors will continue to represent you on Bradford Council.