Thread by @Andrewwood17

Last night Labour & Aspire Councillors voted against the Spitalfields Neighbourhood Plan
They chose to support a flawed business vote over the vote of residents
They did so based on a Council report that was misleading on a key fact & missing essential decision-making info.
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https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1577582946709655552

The claim made last night was that the business turnout of 66.67% was much higher than the resident turnout of 13.46%
And the 80% No vote from businesses was much higher than the resident Yes 54% vote
= support business
But the business turnout calculation was incorrect
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A reminder that in the Spitalfields Neighbourhood Plan referendum last October both businesses and residents living in the Forum area got to vote
Inevitably not everybody votes but elections are decided by those who vote
But last October residents voted Yes and business No
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Every business ratepayer within the area could vote
They were all sent a letter by the Council asking them whether they wanted to vote or not
Only 132 responded yes
We do not know how many businesses were sent letters, this number is missing from the Council report (why?)
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Resident voters automatically get sent polling cards to vote
There were 4,102 registered resident voters, 552 of them voted = 13.4% turnout which is low but not unusual in single-issue elections
For example
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@LutfurRahmanTH 1st got elected in October 2010 with a 25% turnout
@CllrKabirAhmed was elected in August 2021 with a 28% turnout
Nobody has said their election legitimacy was affected by low turnout
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But the business turnout was not 66.67%, that is purely the turnout of the 132 who expressed an interest, not those eligible to vote
The Council is not comparing apples to apples when it compares 13.46% to 66.67%
We need to know what the true number of businesses in area was
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Total valid business votes 88
Total number of votes cast by 6 people voting more than once = 19 votes Police investigating
Number of votes cast from a single office building = 48 (or 49.5% of the total vote)
There is some duplication between the 19 & 48 number
But it does
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suggest that to rely on a much higher business No vote % is strange for democratically elected politicians
They chose to honour the Business vote & not the Resident vote !!
What happens if people are convicted of illegally voting in the business referendum?
Do we redo the ref?
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On a side note 9 of the business votes cast were declared invalid, a very high %, we do not know why
But if you recalculate the business vote to make it fair i.e. removing duplicate vote (from individuals & premises) you might get a very different story about business turnout
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Another point - Council were supposed to set out in advance the decision make criteria if it had a split vote like this
@TowerHamletsNow failed to do this as far as I can see
So they now retrospectively have to write a justification for decision last
gov.uk/guidance/neigh…
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night
In reality the turnout % was just an excuse
Labour & Aspire Councillors had other non-planning related reasons for rejecting the Neighbourhood Plan which I will explain separately
But Council officers have to write a legal justification after @going4golds pointed out
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that the Council's own report required it (& it should have been done last night)
I will be submitting an FOI asking for the true size of the business vote base to properly calculate business turnout
& I am sure others will be asking the Police for an update as well
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@luhc also needs to re-think how legislation & guidance works in this situation
@SpitalfieldsNPF @ELAdvertiser @OurEastLondon @PuruMiah @TH_Labour @AspireParty @SpitalfieldsT
A reminder the Council report missed a lot of relevant information

https://twitter.com/Andrewwood17/status/1577582882318606337?s=20&t=0XVGnrj2_BTox3bn0OQEfg

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