A blog by Bob Pullen, member of the Ct5 People’s Forum town council group.
I couldn’t disguise a wry smile when this question was asked during Canterbury City Council’s General Purposes Committee on 13 December 2023. The Committee was considering draft terms of reference for a Community Governance Review looking into whether Whitstable should have its own town council following the submission of a petition signed by over 1,797 of the local electorate requesting a review.
Several Committee members were concerned that town council elections would be uncontested, i.e. not enough people register to stand for election in relation to seats on the council. This is a situation that happens frequently in the case of parish councils where the people registering to stand for election automatically become members of the council if the election is uncontested.
This is perhaps an understandable concern in Canterbury district which currently only has one town council, Fordwich. Fordwich actually has more in common with a parish than a big coastal town. But uncontested elections for town councils are very much the exception not the rule.
The reason for the wry smile is that I have acted as a counting assistant at elections in neighbouring Swale for the last 15 years. Every four years we have the Swale Borough, parish and town council elections. As in other areas, only some of the parish council elections are contested and for those that do elect, counting the ballot papers for small rural areas is straightforward and quick. Then there is Faversham Town Council.
Picture courtesy of Swale Borough Council
Some of the wards for Faversham Town Council have four members. If more than three political parties put out a full complement of candidates you’re already into double figures. The ballot papers hang off either end of the counting tables they are so long. If an elector has opted to vote for all candidates from just a single political party, counting the ballots is again relatively straightforward although they are somewhat unwieldy.
If an elector has opted to vote for candidates from multiple political parties, or just one or two candidates, we are into ‘grass skirts’. In this event, the ballot papers need to be lined up precisely onto large sheets of card which contain adhesive and then the votes for each candidate counted horizontally and vertically to ensure they tally. This will typically result in hundreds of such sheets and they are given this name as they are said to resemble Hawaiian style grass skirts.
A quick look at the statistics below I think demonstrates that this situation is not peculiar to Faversham. Other town councils around the Kent coast also enjoy a healthy level of democracy. With about 30,000 residents and a fantastic level of community activism it is hard to imagine the same wouldn’t be true of Whitstable.
Town Council elections 2019 and 2023
Comments