Community Governance Reviews

[carolus]

Whilst perhaps not of the same consequence as other types of boundary reviews, these still exist and are occurring, so I thought I'd give a brief summary of ones I'm currently aware of. I suspect many will be missing. I can't claim to know anything particular about the areas involved. The descriptions should be taken as the topics under discussion, not the final decisions.

Broxtowe (Draft proposals):

Awsworth - gain a small area from Kimberley

Brinsley - move an isolate property from Greasley.

Cossall - Area moved to Awsworth. Gains an unparished rural area.

Eastwood - Land swap with Greasley.

Greasley - Send some areas to Kimberley, and Nuthall, and Awsworth.

Kimberley - Send some areas to Greasley, gain some from unparished.

Nuthall - To Kimberley.

Stapleford - various unoccupied land changes. Some land from Stapleford.

Carlisle:

Stanwix - creation of a Stanwix Village council, potentially taking Millcroft and Tarraby View from Stanwix Rural.

Central Bedfordshire:

Eggington - Send some area to Leighton-Linslade, or create a new parish.

Chelmsford (Draft proposals):

Boreham/Little Waltham/Springfield - New parish as mentioned in Broomfield (9). Another new parish of Chelmer Village  (15)from the ward of the same name. Move some parts of unparished area to Springfield (19) as new wards.

Broomfield - Move an area to unparished city centre. Add part of Little Waltham to Broomfield. Creation of new parish (Belsteads/Chemsford Garden Community) taking part of Broomfield. Reduce councillors from 13 to 12.

Chignal - Move an area to unparished city centre.

Danbury - Reduce from 15 to 12 councillors reflecting size of parish and unfilled seats at recent elections.

Galleywood - Move part of Goat Hall to Galleywood. Remove the wards. Increase councillors from 9 to 12.

Great and Little Leighs - Increase from 9 to 10 due to size, regardless of recent unfilled seats.

Gread Baddow - Move some parts into unparished area. Increase councillors from 15 from 13.

Little Baddow - Reduce from 9 to 8 councillors reflecting size and unfilled seats.

Margaretting - Reduce from 9 to 7 councillors due to lack of contested elections.

Mashbury - No change but comment invited about remaining as a meeting or joining Chignal as a ward.

Rettendon - Here I quote from the proposals: "From the outset, I must advise that opting to expel part of a parish area representing approximately a quarter of the electorate due to political disagreement is a potentially unhealthy way to run a democracy and that view, of itself, fails to meet the statutory requirements of a Community Governance Review". The attempt seems to be to expel Hayes Country Park from the parish, either by sending it to South Woodham Ferrers, or leave it on its own, or possibly just make it a ward. The review proposes no change, but "It should be noted that the most effective way to resolve local disagreements is unlikely to be through changes to electoral arrangements, but only through local facilitated dialogue."

Roxwell - Reduce from 9 to 7 councillors due to lack of contested elections.

Runwell - Create a new St Luke's Ward with 2 councillors taken from East ward.

Sandon - Increase from 7 to 8 councillors, regardless of recent unfilled seats.

Unparished area - Tinker with boundaries as mentioned elsewhere, but don't parish it.

West Hanningfield - Reduce number of councillors from 9 to 8 due to number of recent unfilled seats and last contested election in 2007.

Writtle - Adjust ward boundaries to follow polling district - move one councillor from North to South wards (Currently 8, 7).

Cherwell:

Ambrosden/Blackthorn - Change boundary so that all of Blackthorn Meadows is in Ambrosden.

Banbury/Drayton - Move Castle Grange to be in one parish. Move two other areas into Banbury.

Banbury - various changes with its neighbours given increased development

Begbroke - 6 to 7 councillors.

Bicester - changes given developments, and possible future development at Wretchwick Way.

Chesterton - 7 to 8+ councillors.

Chesterton/Bucknell/Bicester - land swap between the first two, tidy up boundary between Chesterton and Bicester.

Epwell/Sibford Gower - Move some woodland and fields to Epwell.

Horley/Hanwell/Wroxton - move areas to Horley.

Kidlington/Gosford & Water Eaton - Merge councils. If not, move an area into Kidlington (I think this would be most of the residents of G&WE).

Somerton - 5 to 6 councillors.

Cornwall:

A whole bunch left over from a few years ago, where covid and the 2021 council elections seem to have contrived to delay decisions on the trickier parts (i.e. mostly ones with a dispute between the parishes involved), and they're now running further consultations.

Colan/Newquay - Transfer a further area south of the A392 to Newquay. Transfer Quintrell Downs to Colan.

Cubert/Perranzabuloe - Transfer proposed new housing estate at Penhale Camp into Cubert.

Davidstow/Treneglos/Warbstow - Merger of Treneglos and Warbstow. Reunite all of Hallworthy in Davidstow or a combined T&W.

Hayle - Creation of a new Hayle Central ward, resulting in a council consisting of Central (5), East (4), West (6), compared to just West (10), East (5) at present.

Helston/Wendron - Transfer HX1 development area to Helston.

Kenwyn/Truro - Transfer all of Gloweth Ward into Truro.

Liskeard/Menhenhiot - Transfer Tencreek Farm and retail park to Liskeard.

Padstow - Carve out Trevone into a new parish. Seems to have been proposed by two residents of Trevone, one of whom has since expressed their wish to withdraw it.

Penzance/Madron - Transfer Gulval to Madron. Turn Penzance's Heamoor Ward(? I think this has been merged with Gulval since the proposal) into its own parish. Turn Penzance's Newlyn & Moushole ward into a new parish. Split

Newlyn & Mousehole Ward (5) into Newlyn Ward (4) and Moushole & Paul Ward (1). All parties seem to have lost interest in the first and second changes.

Ponsanooth/Stithians - Transfer Kennall Vale to Ponsanooth.

St Austell/Treverbyn - Transfer Carclaze and Boscoppa to St Austell. Transfer an area around Higher Trewhiddle Farm marked for development to St Austell. The former seems to be part of the town itself already, I don't quite understand what the controversy is in the latter since all parties seem to essentially agree.

St Breock/Wadebridge - Extend Wadebridge council area to the west to cover the full extent of the town.

St Minver Highlands/St Minver Lowlands - Merger of the two parishes. Exchange of Polzeath (into Highlands) for River Camel estuary (into Lowlands).

Dorset:

General review.

East Suffolk:

General review.

Hertsmere:

Aldenham - Realign parish boundary with the district ward boundaries (move EE & EF polling districts into the parish). Remove polling district EA from the parish.

Ridge - Terminate the parish. Demote it to a meeting. Merge it with South Mimms. Merge it with Shenley. Merge all three.

Shenley - Warding arrangements. Mergers as above.

South Mimms - Mergers as above.

Lichfield:

General review.

Mid Devon:

General review.

Somerset West & Taunton:

Taunton - Whether to parish Taunton itself (the only unparished area of SW&T), the warding arrangements for such a council, and any necessary changes to the surrounding parishes.

South Gloucestershire:

Bradley Stoke Town - Ward boundaries

Little Sodbury meeting - amalgamate or group with a neighbour.

Oldbury on Severn - Increase in councillors

Pucklechurh/Emersons Green - Change to boundary in Lyde Green

Patchway - New parish for Charlton Hayes

Stoke Gifford - New parish for Cheswick/Stoke Park

Thornbury - Ward boundaries

Tytherington - Increase in councillors and name change

Unparished areas - New parishes

Westerleigh - Change name to Westerleigh and Coalpit Heath

Wickwar - Increase in councillors

Yate - Ward boundaries.

St Albans:

General review.

Wakefield:

General review.

West Suffolk:

Bury St Edmunds/Haverhill/Newmarket - fix ward boundaries to match district wards and county divisions.

Rushbrooke with Rougham - Governance arrangements for Lark Grange

Wiltshire:

Beechingstoke - Currently has five seats, has elected zero councillors in 2021 or 2017 despite reruns. Change to a parish meeting. Group with another parish. Merge with another parish. Transfer area around Bottlesford to North Newnton.

Malmesbury/St Paul Malmesbury Without - Malmesbury would like to Annex all of the surrounding area from SPMW, significantly shrinking SPMW. Would then like to create seven wards with a more sensible distribution of 20 councillors, up from 16, currently split between Malmesbury (15) and Backbridge (1). SPMW would instead like to take Backbridge from Malmesbury and shrink to one ward of 12 instead of St Paul (10) and Westport (2) as at present.

Calne Without - New parish of Derry Hill & Studley from the CW wards of Pewsham and West. Then either continue the remainder of CW or dissolve it and transfer areas to various surrounding parishes. Transfer slivers of CW and Cherhill to Compton Bassett.

Calne Without 2 - Calne TC would like to receive various chunks of CW.

[peterl]

Thanks for starting this thread, CGRs interest me and there seem to be a few of us into parish level politics. I am following the review in Dorset closely and I'll post updates on it as I hear more.

[J.G.Harston]

As a follow-on from the Scarborough borough ward review in 2019 we were planning on having a parish governance review, tidy up defaced boundaries, tidy up parish wards for population movements and silly fall-outs from the SBC review. But, with the borough being abolished that's not possible now, but the county council know it's an issue and is has been recorded as something the new unitary needs to consider. As the first term of the new unitary council will include a ward review to get a proper warding structure to replace the interim one we're running with, it will probably not be able to be done until the second session, after 2027.

[Khunanup]

Any complete abolition of town/parish councils proposed currently?

[carolus]

Feb 5, 2022 23:44:04 GMT Khunanup said:

Any complete abolition of town/parish councils proposed currently?

There were a handful of mergers/reductions to a parish meeting proposed. I didn't notice anything that seemed like it'd clearly result in an area becoming unparished, other than some small bits around Chelmsford being added to the unparished city area itself.

[listener]

I have been thinking hard and I can only recall five cases where a parish or town council was dissolved, usually because the electorate resent paying the additional rates
Southsea in Portsmouth
Letchworth in North Hertfordshire
Offerton Park in Stockport
Tarbock in Knowsley
Birtley in Gateshead

Burdon and Warden Law parishes in Sunderland are dormant.

In the recent Hatfield South West by-election, the Abolish Hatfield Town Council candidate came last with 44 votes.

There are many examples of parish and town councils created recently, particularly when the two-tier system is converted to a unitary system and is perceived to be more remote from local communities - Weymouth and Northampton are two recent examples, although High Wycombe decided to stick with charter trustees and so has Carlisle.

[Pete Whitehead]

Feb 5, 2022 19:05:17 GMT carolus said:

Whilst perhaps not of the same consequence as other types of boundary reviews, these still exist and are occurring, so I thought I'd give a brief summary of ones I'm currently aware of. I suspect many will be missing. I can't claim to know anything particular about the areas involved. The descriptions should be taken as the topics under discussion, not the final decisions.

Hertsmere:

Aldenham - Realign parish boundary with the district ward boundaries (move EE & EF polling districts into the parish). Remove polling district EA from the parish.

Ridge - Terminate the parish. Demote it to a meeting. Merge it with South Mimms. Merge it with Shenley. Merge all three.

Shenley - Warding arrangements. Mergers as above.

South Mimms - Mergers as above.

I don't like the sound of this. The polling districts codes don't match those on my obviously out of date map, but I presume EE & EF are those parts of the former Bushey UD which were moved into Aldenham West at the last review (Patchetts Green and Hillfield Lane area.) It's one thing to shift areas about across parish boundaries to satisfy requirements for equal ward electorates but this shouldn't lead to this kind of salami slicing. The fact that Bushey doesn't have a parish council of its own doesn't help of course . One would be bound to argue against future wards crossing parish boundaries (which is never ideal anyway) if it is going to lead on to changing administrative boundaries in this way.
EA is presumably the odd little bit of Garston which is seperated frrom the rest of the parish by the M1.  That is logical enough - presumably the proposal would be to change the borough boundary and move that area into Watford.

[carolus]

Feb 6, 2022 12:02:05 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I don't like the sound of this. The polling districts codes don't match those on my obviously out of date map, but I presume EE & EF are those parts of the former Bushey UD which were moved into Aldenham West at the last review (Patchetts Green and Hillfield Lane area.) It's one thing to shift areas about across parish boundaries to satisfy requirements for equal ward electorates but this shouldn't lead to this kind of salami slicing. The fact that Bushey doesn't have a parish council of its own doesn't help of course . One would be bound to argue against future wards crossing parish boundaries (which is never ideal anyway) if it is going to lead on to changing administrative boundaries in this way.

Yes - the parish boundary would then follow the M1 in that area.

EA is presumably the odd little bit of Garston which is seperated frrom the rest of the parish by the M1.  That is logical enough - presumably the proposal would be to change the borough boundary and move that area into Watford.

Yes - a couple of small residential streets that would seem to have no business being in the parish anyway, although the proposed change would also remove an area of (I think) uninhabited land to the east of the M1 as well. The information so far doesn't give a suggestion about what would happen to the area, but surely must be to move into Watford, as you say.

Some maps of the changes linked from here www.hertsmere.gov.uk/Your-Council/Democracy-Elections/Community-Governance-Review-2022.aspx anyway.

[carolus]

Feb 6, 2022 11:41:40 GMT listener said:

There are many examples of parish and town councils created recently, particularly when the two-tier system is converted to a unitary system and is perceived to be more remote from local communities - Weymouth and Northampton are two recent examples, although High Wycombe decided to stick with charter trustees and so has Carlisle.

I do wonder how far this will end up going. There are town councils being created with greater populations than some districts - obviously a big gap still in the powers they have, but...

[ilerda]

Was Northampton not Milton Keynsified with the urban area divided into a number of separate parishes? If not it would seem like the perfect opportunity to give these urban community councils another shot.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

A few of the outer suburbs of Northampton formed separate parishes but it wasn't uniform and left a very large 'Northampton Town Council' (which is also lopsided - covers almost the entirety of the east of the town but nothing in the south and not much in the west).

[carolus]

Feb 6, 2022 13:32:59 GMT ilerda said:

Was Northampton not Milton Keynsified with the urban area divided into a number of separate parishes? If not it would seem like the perfect opportunity to give these urban community councils another shot.

Northampton TC has (according to wikipedia, anyway), a population of 130,000 compared to a total population of Northampton of 225,000. The bits that aren't part of the TC are mostly the areas that were already parished on the Southern and Western edges of the town, together with new Far Cotton & Delapre and Kingsthorpe parishes. FC&D managed to elect five out of twelve councillors in its first elections - Kingsthorpe did better on twelve of fifteen, with one ward even being contested.

Map here: www.northamptontowncouncil.gov.uk/uploads/parish-boundary-changes-2020.pdf

[mattb]

Feb 6, 2022 12:02:05 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I don't like the sound of this. The polling districts codes don't match those on my obviously out of date map, but I presume EE & EF are those parts of the former Bushey UD which were moved into Aldenham West at the last review (Patchetts Green and Hillfield Lane area.) It's one thing to shift areas about across parish boundaries to satisfy requirements for equal ward electorates but this shouldn't lead to this kind of salami slicing. The fact that Bushey doesn't have a parish council of its own doesn't help of course . One would be bound to argue against future wards crossing parish boundaries (which is never ideal anyway) if it is going to lead on to changing administrative boundaries in this way.
EA is presumably the odd little bit of Garston which is seperated frrom the rest of the parish by the M1.  That is logical enough - presumably the proposal would be to change the borough boundary and move that area into Watford.

tbh both changes seem entirely sensible (regardless of ward boundary changes).

[evergreenadam]

It amazes me how much government time is spent reorganising parish boundaries while they ignore some long overdue action on principal area boundary reviews where development has utterly transformed the character of the original boundary between local authorities and where there are some appalling anomalies that make for very inefficient local government.

[Defenestrated Fipplebox]

Feb 6, 2022 15:27:00 GMT evergreenadam said:

It amazes me how much government time is spent reorganising parish boundaries while they ignore some long overdue action on principal area boundary reviews where development has utterly transformed the character of the original boundary between local authorities and where there are some appalling anomalies that make for very inefficient local government.

Doesn't amaze me, central government doesn't want efficient local government. 

[carolus]

Feb 6, 2022 15:27:00 GMT evergreenadam said:

It amazes me how much government time is spent reorganising parish boundaries while they ignore some long overdue action on principal area boundary reviews where development has utterly transformed the character of the original boundary between local authorities and where there are some appalling anomalies that make for very inefficient local government.

Surely the answer is "very little" though? The reviews, as far as I can tell, are conducted by the local authorities with input from the LGBCE where necessary (e.g. where it would impact district ward boundaries). Once the council has finalised the plans they pass it to central government for final approval, but govt isn't conducting the reviews themselves.

[carolus]

Some more:

Bassetlaw:
Beckingham-cum-Saundby - Reduce Councillors.
Carlton-in-Lindrick - Review boundary with non-parished Worksop, where a new development currently lies in CiL.
Holbeck & Welbeck - Merge with neighbours.
Misson - Increase Councillors.
Rampton & Woodbeck - Increase Councillors.
Ranskill/Torworth - Move new development into Torworth.


Birmingham:
Balsall Heath - Creation of a new parish council.

East Devon:
Colyford - Create a new Colyford parish by splitting it off from Colyton.

Middlesbrough:
General review. Most of Middlesbrough is currently unparished.

Milton Keynes (final recommendations):
Bletchley & Fenny Stratford - Move area from Manor South ward into Newton Leys ward. Increase Newton Leys councillors from 1 to 3. Rename Manor North to Manor North & Eaton Leys, and increase councillors from 1 to 2.
Stantonbury - Increase councillors in Bradville (4 to 5), Stantonbury & Linford Oak (3 to 4), Oakridge Park (1 to 2).
Wavendon - Increase councillors from 7 to 9.

South Kesteven:
Grantham - Creation of a town council. Grantham is the only unparished area in South Kesteven. If so, whether to align the boundaries of the currently unparished area with the boundaries of the town (i.e. the district wards).

Waverley:
General review.

York:
General review. Appear to be attempting to redo the review they failed to complete in 2014(?!). They note that the guidance suggests every 10-15 years, and it has now been 20 since they last had a review.

[ilerda]

Feb 6, 2022 15:27:00 GMT evergreenadam said:

It amazes me how much government time is spent reorganising parish boundaries while they ignore some long overdue action on principal area boundary reviews where development has utterly transformed the character of the original boundary between local authorities and where there are some appalling anomalies that make for very inefficient local government.

The central government has almost zero involvement in the process, apart from requiring it to be done by local authorities and I suppose being responsible for laying the SIs to bring the changes into effect.

I agree that there needs to be a more wholesale review of principal authority boundaries to tidy them up, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that the government is avoiding that to focus on parish boundaries instead.

Edit: Additionally I think the LGBCE should have the general power to undertake a principal area boundary adjustment where the number of affected electors is below, say, 500, without having to wait for the principal authorities to ask for one.

[greenchristian]

Feb 6, 2022 15:37:10 GMT Defenestrated Fipplebox said:

Feb 6, 2022 15:27:00 GMT evergreenadam said:

It amazes me how much government time is spent reorganising parish boundaries while they ignore some long overdue action on principal area boundary reviews where development has utterly transformed the character of the original boundary between local authorities and where there are some appalling anomalies that make for very inefficient local government.

Doesn't amaze me, central government doesn't want efficient local government. 

[listener]

No-one has mentioned the comprehensive review of community governance under way in Cheshire East. The draft proposals, currently out for public consultation, recommend that Handforth (now proudly boasting a Town Council) should be become part of the neighbouring Wilmslow. Chairman John Smith, now in firm control at Handforth, is fighting bitterly against this, while Jackie Weaver waits at the sidelines.