The furtive coalition arrangement between the Greens and Labour, revealed in an exclusive report by Brighton and Hove News, has already undermined faith in democracy in the city.
As articulated by the Conservative whip, to have a party hold itself up as the city’s official opposition while at the same time being part of a coalition arrangement to govern the city clearly undermines the spirit of democracy and generates its own questions about why certain allowances have been claimed.
But the content of this agreement also raises questions about the practical impact of this deal on policy formation and decision-making in the city and how this has affected the lives of residents.
An example from this year shows the impact that this deal has had.
City Plan – a cautionary tale
The City Plan Part 2 is one of the most significant policies that Brighton and Hove undertakes. It is a 10-year development plan for the city including where housing will be built.
It is required to meet the city’s minimum housing targets and affects all parts of the city including green spaces. It is a document many residents care deeply about.
On Thursday 23 April a special council meeting was called to consider this important document.
The Conservatives, having scrutinised the proposals and carefully looked at the figures, came to that meeting with new information for councillors.
The Conservatives presented data showing that how, taking into account recent planning decisions, just the brownfield sites in the plan would easily met the housing targets that the city was required to meet.
This meant the “urban fringe and its ecology could be spared.
The Conservatives put forward the proposal that the 16 urban fringe sites, that would only contribute 930 of the 16,000 proposed new dwellings, should be removed from the City Plan Part 2. These are figures which have never been disputed by the council.
Given that councillors from other parties had previously expressed their desire to protect the urban fringe from development – some in cast iron pledges to their constituents – we thought that the Conservative proposal would be welcomed and win support from the other parties.
But to our surprise this didn’t happen. On the night, Labour and the Greens seemingly ignored the new evidence and simply voted the plan through.
This catastrophic decision was the last time the council allowed was allowed any debate on the matter. Residents’ petitions and deputations were later disallowed from discussion at council meetings.
The decision had been made – but had not taken into account all the evidence.
Our urban fringe – a casualty of the ‘coalition’ deal?
Following the revelations published in Brighton and Hove News, it has become clearer why this happened.
As has now been documented, housing forms part of the coalition agreement between Labour and the Greens.
And under the Labour-Green agreement, policies are agreed ahead of time in meetings between the two parties.
The agreement states: “These meetings are regarded by both parties as being confidential unless otherwise agreed and any council papers or documents shared in said meetings shall be treated as confidential and shall not be released or the information used for any public purpose without the express agreement of the relevant chair.”
So when all councillors sat behind their computer screens in April – and the Conservatives put forward their carefully researched work for debate – the deal had probably already been done in a confidential meeting behind the scenes.
The council meeting was simply treated as a rubber stamp by Labour and the Greens for a decision already made.
‘Coalition’ deal doesn’t serve residents’ interests
This isn’t democracy at all and it is obviously a bad outcome for our city.
It does a disservice to our residents who expect decisions to be evidence-based and well-debated. Residents were left with no voice. The council has not conducted its duty to its residents on this policy.
It has also led to a bad policy outcome for our city. Sixteen urban fringe sites have been put at risk of development by this decision and it has upset many residents who wanted to save their green land.
The City Plan Part 2, if subjected to the normal scrutiny, could have been changed.
After the meeting, Councillor Robert Nemeth, who spoke for the Conservatives on City Plan Part 2, said: “I have discussed the City Plan Part 2 with numerous administration and opposition councillors, each of whom would normally either champion the environment or their own residents’ concerns, and not one was aware to what degree the City Plan passed the Planning Inspectorate’s target of 13,200 homes.
“As I said on the day, 16,000 potential homes have been found. All councillors that I have spoken to were under the impression that removing the 930 in the urban fringe would leave us short of the target, which clearly wasn’t the case.”
Scrutiny and transparency are crucial for democracy. This coalition deal shuts out the light and the resulting decisions hurt our city and its residents.
Councillor Steve Bell is the leader of the Conservatives on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Tory housing minister Robert Jenrick seems to have scrapped his housing algorithm which took away local control and forced councils to build where they didn’t want to.
But it’s only been scrapped in rural Tory council districts