Introduction
Due to our “First Past The Post” (FPTP) electoral system, electoral boundaries are changed every 10 years or so and so it is that from 4 May 2017, the County Council Division of West End and Grange Park will be no more. Instead, West End will be split into two electoral Divisions to accommodate this quaint voting system of ours. On 4 May 2017, the County Division I will be contesting will be known as West End & Horton Heath. This will mean losing polling districts HL and HM and gaining postal districts AI and AJ. The reason for the boundary changes is because the FPTP voting system requires a similar number of voters in each area and since West End and Horton Heath are semi rural, a number of new houses are likely to be built during the next 10 years.
Hampshire County Council is divided into 78 Divisions. I decided to stand for all tiers of councils within my jurisdiction in order to simplify local politics for my community. Otherwise, if anyone has a council services issue, they would have to check out which council is responsible for that service and then find out which councillor represented that council. It would be similarly complicated at election times. Irrespective of which tier a councillor serves, all councillors have the same title, so they is nothing to distinguish the varying levels of responsibility. This may change with the impending referendum on whether Hampshire should become a County unitary council. However, in 2016, there are 27 councillors in West end and Grange Park and I am 27 of them. This is because not only do the different tiers of local government have different responsibilities, they cover different areas.
Demography
West End and Hedge End were once located in quite rural settings. To a certain extent, West End still is, but within the last couple of years, several hundred houses have been built south of the motorway and in the next decade, a thousand more will be built north of the motorway. As a result, traffic congestion has become a local bugbear.
Local Issues
Below are just a few of the local issues important to our community.
