News has reached ConservativeHome of a major setback for Labour in Lancashire where last Thursday the ruling Lab/Lib Dem coalition on South Ribble Council were forced into a u-turn over their attempts to abolish the council by merging it with the City of Preston. The Government has been urging councils to seek a merger with other neighbouring councils in a number of areas as part of its City Regions Agenda. This is clearly part of the Government's ongoing Regionalisation agenda and as such is opposed by the Conservative Party.
Until last week it seemed that this would be a rubber-stamping exercise in areas such as South Ribble. Certainly the local Labour and Lib Dem politicians in South Ribble seemed to think so as they voted to spend £60,000 on consultants to prove the case for a merger just two months ago. However, Lorraine Fullbrook the Conservative candidate in South Ribble who has already defeated the Lancashire Police Merger this year had other plans.
Proving once again the power of selecting candidates early (she was reselected in October last year having fought South Ribble in 2005), Lorraine launched a text book campaign that has resulted in the Labour Leader of South Ribble rejecting his own recommendations and instead accepting the Conservative’s favoured option that retains both the County and the Borough Councils with some minor changes (the so called improved two tier option).
Lorraine won by putting out three newspapers over six months that made local people aware of the merger proposal and by setting the agenda from day one. She forced the Council to hold public meetings and even delivered her own vote on the proposal to 35,000 homes after the Council refused to do so.
Asked to comment on her success Lorraine said:
“The key to our victory, was that we started the moment a merger was rumoured, we did our research and we identified all the negatives that the Council knew about that which they buried deep in the Council reports. This victory is a huge boost to my team, and a snub to the Labour MP who has favoured a merger for over a decade since he was leader of Preston, but who know nows that he was trying to back something that even his core supporters were against.”
Anyone else facing a forced Merger might like to drop Lorraine a line at [email protected] I understand that she is more than willing to share tips on what her campaign did.
