Local Government Reorganisation is back in the headlines, with the next batch of counties being lined up by Government to go unitary.
I know the feelings well, mainly the uncertainty. Will the elections happen in May or won’t they, what might the new council look like, will Liberal Democrats be able to influence anything, or is this the end of our record of service for our communities.
Westmorland and Furness wasn’t designed to be a Lib Dem-run council. Yes, the Conservatives wanted two councils in Cumbria so that they could eventually have a combined authority mayor – but they also wanted to divide and conqueror.
The key to our success was relatively simple – keep hedging our bets building campaigns across wider areas so that whatever happened we’d be ready, and just crack on with the campaigning.
There was an awful lot of discussion about what the new council might look like, how the existing councils might be paired, and not always a lot of agreement among our councillors from different authorities.
But it was obvious from the outset that there wouldn’t be time for a full ward boundary review. Straight away we produced Focus on a wider basis than before, trying to make sure that our councillors name recognition increased outside their own wards in logical areas.
And we influenced where we could, preventing options for the new councils that would make it harder for Liberal Democrats to win, without dragging whole council groups into long series of meetings.
Designing new councils is a huge job, and we were in leadership positions on three of the four existing councils, one of which we controlled. But once the geography is set there’s not huge amounts that can be done until after the shadow elections, so we focused on winning.
When it came to the new ward boundaries, we tasked just a couple of people with liaising with the officers who were drawing them up rather than spending hours coming up with a suggestion of our own that would ultimately just get ignored.
And we campaigned. Candidates were selected on provisional ward boundaries as soon as they were known, leaflets were designed and printed straight away, doorknocking started in earnest. We were the first and fastest out of the blocks with a narrative for the new council that resonated with voters.
And by focussing on campaigning, that huge orange blob stares out at anyone looking at a map of council control.