A petition for a dedicated upland seat has passed ten thousand signatures.

A petition calling for a dedicated Assembly seat for the upland communities above the valley passed ten thousand signatures on Sunday evening, triggering a formal requirement for the Assembly’s procedures committee to consider it. Organisers say the hill towns, home to around 38,000 people, are split between three larger constituencies dominated by voters in the valley and the city, and that their concerns are routinely outvoted.

The petition was launched in August by a group of parish councillors, farmers and business owners from Kelderby, Rowan Fell and the smaller villages along the high road. It had reached 10,412 signatures by Monday morning, the majority from addresses in the uplands, with a few hundred from people who grew up there and have since moved away.

What campaigners are asking for

The proposal is for a single new constituency drawn around the hill towns, which would take the Assembly from 61 to 62 seats. Supporters argue that the upland population is large enough to justify one seat on its own, and that its needs, from school transport over long distances to the cost of heating stone houses, are distinct from those of the valley below.

At present, two independents represent constituencies that include significant parts of the hill towns, and both have been influential in a chamber where no party holds more than 24 seats. Campaigners say that is more by luck than design, and that a future redrawing of boundaries could easily remove upland voices altogether.

“We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking that the people who live up here, who drive forty minutes to a hospital and lose their buses every winter, have one person whose job is to speak for them first,” said Eluned Brightwater, a sheep farmer and chair of the Rowan Fell parish council, who started the petition.

Mrs Brightwater said the campaign had gathered momentum after last winter, when the high road was closed for eleven days by snow and several villages lost power for most of a week. Many residents felt their plight had attracted far less attention in the chamber than flooding in the valley the previous year.

The case against

The idea faces significant obstacles. Adding a seat requires a change to the Assembly’s founding statute, which needs a two-thirds majority. Electoral officials point out that a constituency of 38,000 would be smaller than the regional average of around 46,000, giving each upland vote more weight than one cast in the city. Critics also warn that other communities, from the islands to the eastern suburbs, could make similar claims.

Dr Callum Ferreira, who studies electoral systems at the University of Calder, said there were precedents elsewhere for protected seats for remote areas, but that they tend to be contentious. “Every system has to balance equal votes against fair representation of places,” he said. “The hill towns have a reasonable argument. But the moment you accept it, you have to explain why the same logic does not apply to the next group that asks.”

Several members in the larger parties have suggested a compromise: rather than a new seat, a standing committee on upland affairs with a guaranteed place for members representing hill-town wards, and a requirement that major spending decisions be assessed for their effect on rural communities.

What happens next

The procedures committee must now hold a hearing within sixty sitting days. Campaigners will be invited to give evidence, and the committee will then report to the full chamber with a recommendation. Both upland independents have said they support the petition, and one has linked the issue to her vote on the coming budget.

Organisers plan a rally on the steps of the Assembly building on the first day of the winter session, and say they will bring a convoy of tractors down the high road for the occasion. Police have asked them to agree a route that avoids the morning rush hour.