PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024 - 6 November 2024 (Commons/General Committees)

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. The draft order is straightforward. It provides for the boundary between Barnsley and Sheffield to be revised so that the whole area of the Oughtibridge Mill housing development will be in the city of Sheffield, as well as providing for consequential changes to corresponding ward and parish boundaries. The councils concerned both support the boundary change, as do the affected parish councils.

Before I go into the detail of the draft order, and with apologies, I must draw the Committee’s attention to the correction slip that has been issued to correct minor drafting and formatting errors. First, it removes the phrase “Ministry for” where the order refers to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in the preamble; in article 2; in the signature box at the end of the order; and in the second and sixth paragraphs of the explanatory note. Secondly, it provides a clearer map of the boundary change for the explanatory note. A formatting issue meant that the map lacked clarity when it was inputted into the draft order. With the help of the statutory instrument registrars, the correction slip now enables the same map to be sufficiently clear and to cover a full page. Those minor errors in the original draft order have now been corrected. The substance of the order is unchanged, and I hope that the reformatted map provides greater clarity for those who read the order.

Few reviews of the external administrative boundaries of local authority areas in England have been carried out since 1992, so from time to time new developments and population changes have caused small-scale boundary anomalies between local authorities. In practice, local government will put in place informal arrangements to deal with such situations, but the very fact that they need to do so is not conducive to effective and convenient local government. Such anomalies can also impact perceptions of community identity: where residents do not feel, for whatever reason, part of a particular area, they may be less likely to take an interest in their council.

On 14 April 2022, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England received a formal request, made jointly by Barnsley council and Sheffield city council, for a review of the boundary in the area. Because the existing boundary runs along the River Don, the Oughtibridge Mill development has been split between the two councils. Both councils told the boundary commission that, because of the geography of the local communities and the existing road layout, the impact on service demand would mostly be felt by Sheffield city council, and that services would be better delivered by that council.

The boundary commission undertook a review of the boundary and consulted those affected, and a majority of the 19 responses supported the boundary change. Following the consultation, the commission’s final recommendation was to transfer to Sheffield the area of the Oughtibridge Mill housing development that is in Barnsley. Doing so would move a section of the councils’ shared boundary at the River Don so as to encapsulate the Oughtibridge Mill development of 12 existing and 284 future dwellings. There was also a recommendation to realign ward and parish boundaries. After receiving the final recommendations, the Secretary of State allowed four weeks for interested parties to make representations. The Department received none in that period.

The draft order provides for the boundary between Barnsley and Sheffield to be revised, so that the whole area of the Oughtibridge Mill housing development will be in the city of Sheffield.

How good it is to have your guidance, Mrs Harris, for our first legislative duty of the day. Today will be a busy one for all of us, with votes on the Budget and the ramifications of the US election competing in our minds for attention. While boundary changes may seem like minor political fare in comparison, it is important that we recognise that we are dealing with the fine grain of politics. People are affected at the most local level by the decisions we make.

I want to express my profound gratitude to our Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and Rushden, for thinking of me as someone who just might be interested in the draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024. I know that many colleagues would willingly have supplanted me and usurped my duties on this Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee. I can only guess at why she so singularly favoured me with the appointment, but I trust that the length of the speech I am about to make will be sufficient to express to her just how appreciative I am that she allotted me this task.

Inevitably, boundary changes can be controversial. Sometimes we risk separating a region from its history. I do not know whether this is an old saying or just something I have been saying for a very long time, but scratch history and you find geography. Our history is moulded by our natural environment. Each region has its own that depends entirely on the fertility of its land, its proximity to the oceans, and trade routes and its access to fresh water and natural resources such as coal or precious metals. The boundary commission has the serious job of keeping our democracy relevant and connected to people, but sometimes, quite without wishing to, it can end up dividing the community and confusing future residents, all at the expense of the taxpayer.

The Minister made much of the fact that the draft order would affect only 12 households, and the final recommendations of the Barnsley and Sheffield principal area boundary review say:

“Our final recommendation to change the district boundary in this area currently affects 12 households”.

However, the recommendations also say that that figure will rise to 284 households by the time the development has been built. That is about 800 to 1,000 people. The Minister also said that no representations were made. Well, of course they were not; people have not yet moved into those 284 households, so how could they have been? That is why it falls to us here in Parliament to consider what those individuals, when they move in, might wish to know.

Let us look carefully at what will be at stake for those 284 families. Of course, we should be just as concerned were the draft order to affect only the current 12 families, but let us consider precisely what will divide those future families from their nearest neighbours in the other part of Oughtibridge Mill. The local authorities’ argument is that it would be more convenient administratively for them if the whole development came under Sheffield, but we ought to be more concerned with the families and what that might mean for them; the decision we take today will have a profound influence on their lives.

Any hon. Member who has looked carefully at the map of the area will have noticed that the part of the Oughtibridge Mill development currently under the jurisdiction of Barnsley council in the Penistone East ward is not only by far the larger part of the site—I would say it is about three to four times the size of the part in the Sheffield area—but actually separated from the residential area of Oughtibridge village by not one, but two major physical barriers.

The first barrier is the River Don, with only one narrow river crossing available to the whole Barnsley side of the estate. Any resident travelling from the eastern part of the development at the far end of Aspen Road who wanted to walk to the post office in Oughtibridge village would face a 1½-mile journey—a 3-mile round trip. But the River Don is not the biggest problem; there is also the A6102. Langsett Road North is a major road—in parts a four-lane highway—and runs parallel to the River Don. It is not a shared artery that binds the people on one side of a community to the people on the other; it is a road that forms a natural boundary and separates people. No doubt that double barrier was what the boundary commission was accounting for when it made its original proposal.

We must not assume that some of the 284 families would not rather enjoy being residents of Barnsley council and appreciate the vision of individuals such Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, who chairs the Barnsley 2030 strategy board, and Bob Kirton, his vice-chair. Their strategy is about “celebrating and championing” the borough as it progresses to 2030 and sets out some bold ambitions. In developing the Barnsley 2030 strategy, they have worked closely with communities, businesses and organisations across all sectors and with local councillors. In the strategy, it was confidently stated that

“our borough’s vision and ambitions represent everyone who has an interest in the future of Barnsley.”

When it was written, that included the people in the Oughtibridge Mill development. Who are we to deny those residents access to the bold and ambitious plan that these councillors speak of? The strategy concludes:

“We truly believe that together we can tell a better and shared story of our borough and we have a real opportunity to turn Barnsley into the place of possibilities.”

In passing this order, we would deny those possibilities to 284 families.

I live in the London borough of Brent, but I am only too aware of how many families in Brent prefer to say that they have a Harrow address. Indeed, many of them have a Harrow postcode to justify their little white lie. We have seen no impact assessment of what such a boundary change might do to the value of these properties in Barnsley and Sheffield.

Indeed. I am talking about the effect on the future value of these properties. Residents who have moved in under one local authority may find the value of their property affected by its suddenly being designated under another. I must stress that I respect both councils and have no doubt that they look after their populations equally well, but we should have been provided with an impact assessment to show that there are such—

Thank you for that, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West for his contribution. Given his diligence in preparing for his speech, I am happy to recommend to the Whip that he joins us for future Delegated Legislation Committees. I thank members of the Committee for—

On a point of order, Mrs Harris. A point of order was made and I believe a motion was made, but I did not hear any vote taken on the motion. I would have thought that that was the function of the Chair.

I do not have a great deal to say in rounding up, other than to reflect on the fact that the consultation included the residents who live in the Oughtibridge site at present, the majority of whom were in support of the move. On the 284 properties that will be brought into the wider development, I would say that most normal people—we are not among them, because we are talking about local government boundaries, which we care a lot about—live in places with identities that they feel connected to. I draw Members’ attention to the sales brochure for the site, which describes it as one of the most attractive developments in Sheffield, and to the fact that the development has a Sheffield address and a Sheffield postcode. I think most people moving into the new development will believe they are moving into Sheffield, and the draft order will allow them to enjoy the services of Sheffield city council.

Question put and agreed to.