Doncaster mayoral race tested by voter frustration

Good morning. Stephen here. For Labour, one of the emotionally resonant battles in these local elections is Doncaster, long considered a rock-solid safe seat for the Labour party, where Boris Johnson made gains and a city being targeted by Reform this year.

The FT’s long-form editor Jonathan Eley, who is from Doncaster, has kindly offered to take us through the significance of the race and written today’s newsletter.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on the local election campaign as a whole.

Keeping up with the Joneses

One of the most interesting mayoral contests on Thursday will be Doncaster, where Labour’s Ros Jones is standing for a fourth term.

Jones has given Doncaster’s voters a period of steadier municipal governance than they have been used to. In the 1990s it was hit by a huge corruption scandal that resulted in half of the serving councillors being prosecuted for expense fraud. That was followed by two controversial mayoralties and central government interventions after failures in core services.

But she will be up against no fewer than 11 rivals, foremost of whom is Reform UK’s Alexander Jones (no relation) who is the bookies’ favourite. Hot-button issues locally include the region’s airport — closed by its private owners in 2022, but set to reopen next year — and the state of the city centre.

I grew up in Doncaster, a place most people whizz through on a train to somewhere more glamorous, and as the FT’s retail correspondent narrated a video in 2020 about the challenges facing town centres.

That exercise taught me that people still care passionately about the fabric of the places they call home. Tumbleweedy high streets and half-empty shopping centres are visible manifestations of wider decline. But it also brought home to me that there are fewer levers councils can pull than voters commonly suppose.

There has been regeneration — see the relocated college and the impressive new cultural quarter, for instance. But I met many Doncastrians who long for the days when coachloads of shoppers arrived on market day and there was a choice of department stores in the town centre.

But councillors cannot hold back the tide of online shopping. They don’t set rents or business rates. They can refuse permission for out-of-town retail parks or business campuses that suck trade out the town centre, though often they are persuaded by promises of jobs and growth to wave them through. Residents may not want another chicken joint or vape shop, but if the usage conditions are met, councillors cannot reasonably prevent one from opening.

Like many councils, Doncaster has a strategic blueprint for its centre. But most commercial property is privately owned (in the case of Doncaster’s shopping centre, by retailer Frasers Group). Even if businesses are broadly supportive, that makes it hard to diversify land usage or curate a coherent retail offering.

Where South Yorkshire County Council once set the cheapest bus fares in the UK, private operators now run a patchwork of services that, like most places outside London, are used mostly by the less well-off and the elderly. Parking charges and fines are a revenue stream that cash-strapped local authorities are loath to give up.

The council has committed funds to more policing, CCTV and other measures to curb begging, drinking and antisocial behaviour. But the erosion of wider support for vulnerable people makes this an ongoing struggle.

Critics say it has spent too much on prettification and gentrification, such as the costly transformation of the Wool Market into a food hall. But that often reflects a desire to kick-start activity and the availability of project-specific funding from central government or other entities (the fact that both Sheffield City Region and now the government are also Labour controlled has helped in this regard). 

The pace of change is gradual and the challenges non-stop. Voters are often impatient with what looks to them like drift or indifference. The temptation for political opponents to capitalise on that frustration by promising the undeliverable is often too great to resist — but risks entrenching apathy and cynicism. 

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Now try this

Stephen here again: I went to see Julie Keeps Quiet yesterday. A masterful debut, both by writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl and by Tessa Van den Broeck in the role of Julie, a teenage tennis star whose coach comes under suspicion. It also has a soundtrack by Caroline Shaw, so an absolutely perfect movie in every way.

Top stories today

• Patchy vetting | Despite its professionalisation drive, Reform UK is a long way from having fully cleaned house, reports Northern correspondent Jen Williams. Hope Not Hate’s Joe Mulhall said “even the British National party would have balked” at some of the material uncovered by his campaign group.

• ‘Welcome to four-way politics’ | Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey was in Grantchester to conclude some unfinished business: he hopes to complete a rout of the Tories in their prosperous, southern redoubts. Will it work?

• Pulling a rarely used lever | The UK government decided to seize control of British Steel before it had assessed the costs to taxpayers, raising questions over the ultimate price of saving the country’s last two blast furnaces.