Val Smith, the former councillor for Blackbird Leys—once a Labour heartland seat—has come under heavy fire for her decision to quit as a city councillor and stand in the forthcoming county council elections.

Mrs Smith announced yesterday that she wanted to be able to push for the replacement of the city and county councils with a new unitary authority.

However, Blackbird Leys IWCA councillor Lee Cole has asked whether the real reasons for Val Smith’s snap decision might instead be the mounting IWCA challenge to her city council seat.

Cllr Cole said: ‘The first I knew of Val Smith’s decision to stand down was when I received an email from a council official. I was initially surprised that she would choose to quit a year before coming up for re-election but it does make sense when you consider the growing strength of the IWCA in her ward.

‘Val may feel she’s safer standing for the county council division, which is spread over a wider area, but I can’t help thinking her decision to quit at such short notice has left the people who voted for her in Blackbird Leys in the lurch while she pursues her own political ambitions.’

Former Mayor and Blackbird Leys councillor Pat Stannard lost his seat to the IWCA in 2004.

This year the county council elections will be held in new electoral divisions. Blackbird Leys and Northfield Brook, where the IWCA already has elected representatives, will be combined with Lye Valley where the IWCA has not previously been active.

Mrs Smith told the Oxford Mail that many big decisions affecting the city are made mainly by the county council and that ‘Having a unitary authority will allow councillors to become more involved in their local areas -- something I can't do at the moment.’

Stuart Craft, the leader of the IWCA group on the council, commented: ‘Val Smith's claim that she has resigned from the city council to push for Oxford to become a unitary authority is hard to believe.’

‘Even if Mrs Smith wins the county council seat it is difficult to see how she will bring about these sweeping changes, especially as she will more than likely be in opposition on the Tory-Lib Dem county council.

‘The power to change the structure of local government lies solely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Val Smith being on the county council won’t affect this one way or another.

‘Her remarks that she can’t become more involved in her local area due to the lack of a unitary authority in Oxford are bizarre to say the least, especially as she has happily sat on the city council for the past 18 years and was supposed to be representing Blackbird Leys residents. I also wonder what Liz Brighouse, the Labour leader of the opposition on the county, thinks of Val’s apparent bid to sort things out.

‘By switching to a supposedly safer seat, Mrs Smith seems to be running scared of the direct challenge she would face from the IWCA for her city council seat next year. With the IWCA currently holding two of the four city council seats in Blackbird and Greater Leys, Labour can no longer take its working class voters for granted—as Val Smith seems to have belatedly realised.’

 http://www.bliwca.fsnet.co.uk/