Community Governance Reviews

[carolus]

A few I couldn't find updates on, although progress should have been made by now:

Barnsley - I guess this has now concluded since someone mentioned elsewhere that the PABR was starting
Birmingham - can't find final recommendations
Cornwall - can't find final recommendations
Dartford – can't find final recommendations
Wakefield – can’t find final recommendations

[peterl]

Final recommendations are now out for phase 2 of Dorset's Community Governance Review.

Vale of Allen Grouped Parish Council (Parishes of Crichel, Gussage All Saints, Gussage St Michael, Hinton and Witchampton - An area of land will be moved from the parish of Pamphill to the parish of Witchampton, and a second area will be moved from the parish of Hinton to the parish of Witchampton.
Chickerell - Charlestown & Littlesea Ward cut from 4 seats to 3 and Chickerell Village increased from 6 to 7, maintaining 10 councillors in total.

Weymouth: New ward pattern is as follows. Some minor changes to boundaries are also proposed, including moving parts of Winterborne Farringdon's Bincombe Ward into Weymouth.

Lanehouse 1
Littlemoor & Preston West 2
Littlemoor & Preston East 2
Melcombe Regis 2
Nottington 1
Radipole West 2
Radipole East 2
Rodwell & Wyke West 2
Rodwell & Wyke South 2
Rodwell & Wyke East 2
Upwey & Broadwey 2
Westham West 2
Westham East 2

Winterborne Farringdon - Bincombe Ward cut from 3 seats to 2, Winterborne Came Ward cut from 3 seats to 2, Winterborne Monkton cut from 3 seats to 2. Some minor changes to boundaries.

Full report with maps here.

[carolus]

I'll do an update on the England CGRs at some point, but wanted to note that there are currently three ongoing Community Reviews in Wales - Caerphilly, Ceredigion, and Vale of Glamorgan. All three are in the initial stages so I don't think there's much to report other than their existence for now. www.ldbc.gov.wales/reviews

[carolus]

 I think these are all the CGRs currently in progress, or that have finished but not yet had elections on the new boundaries.

Birmingham:

- Balsall Heath – creation balloted with 78% in favour but turnout too low. Re-ballot ongoing.

Burnley (Concluded):

- Worsthorne with Hurstwood from 7 to 9.

Cornwall (Concluded):
- Liskeard/Menheniot – move small area into Menheniot
- Hayle – Split into three wards, West (6), Central (5), and East (4).

- Davidstow/Treneglos – Hallworthy moved into Davidstow, Treneglos abolished into Warbstow. I notice from the map here that Warbstow appears to consist of two disconnected parts (not caused by these changes).

East Riding (Initial):

- Full review

Northumberland (Completed):

- Hepcott – Increase from 7 to 9

North Yorkshire (Draft):
- Harrogate – creation of town council using the UA boundaries for its wards. Ward names will be as for the UA except a couple which will have areas pruned off that aren’t in the new TC. Total of 19 councillors, with nine wards of 2 and one ward of 1. Population 55k so a pretty substantial size.
- Scarborough – creation of town council using the UA boundaries for its wards. Same names. 15 councillors in five 3-member wards. Total population 28k.
- Eastfield – extend boundary to match the Eastfield division boundary.
- Newby & Scalby – extend boundary to match Newby division boundary.

- Osgood – extend boundary to match Cayton division boundary.

South Kesteven (draft):

- Grantham – creation of a Town Council with wards replicating the district wards. 22 Councillors.

Stroud (Draft):
- Great Oldbury – create a new parish from parts of Eastington and Stonehouse parishes. 7 councillors. Decrease Eastington to 9.
- Frampton-on-Severn – increase councillors to 10.
- Hunts Grove – increase from 5 to 9.

- Stonehouse – redraw boundaries, creating North (6), South (4), and Central (4).

Warrington (Draft)
- Penketh – not abolish

- Poulton with Fearnhead/WInwick - transfer area from W to PwF, redo the wards in PwF. Review councillor distribution across W wards.

West Devon (Initial):
- Okehampton – add areas from Okehampton Hamlets to Okehampton Town

- Sydenham Damerel – abolish the parish council, reduce it to a parish meeting.

Wiltshire (Draft)
- Westbury/Heywood – transfer area from Westbury to Heywood, transfer very small area the other way. Remove wards from Heywood (7).
- Tidworth – reduce from 19 to 15, North & West (8), South-East & Perham Down (7).
- Figheldean/Fittleton cum Haxton/Netheravon – Transfer areas from the first and second to Netheravon.
- Castle Combe/Grittleton/Nettleton/Yatton Keynell – transfers from Castle Combe and Nettleton to Grittleton, and a transfer from Grittleton to Castle Combe to eliminate a strange protuberance. Small stransfer from CC to YK
- Biddestone & Slaughterford/Yatton Keynell – small transfers both ways.
- Warminster – increase from 13 to 14, wards (4, 4, 4, 2).
- Donhead St Mary – decrease from 13 to 11.
- Monkton Farleigh – increase from 7 to 8.

[carolus]

Babergh (Initial)
- Sudbury - revise arrangements, in particular distribution of councillors.

Mid Suffolk (Initial)
- Battisford/Combs - Adjust boundary
- Onehouse/Stowmarket - Adjust boundary

[Harry Hayfield]

As the person in charge of boundary reviews for Ceredigion Green Party, I asked my party to submit their thoughts on the community reviews here in Ceredigion and got nothing back, therefore have written the following to the Commissioners:

Dear Sir,

I am writing on behalf of the Green Party in Ceredigion with a collection of suggestions based on the desire by the Comission to recieve soundings on the communities in Ceredigion. First of all, we wish to note that at the last elections for the community councils in Ceredigion, out of the 540 seats that were available for nomination, only 439 were filled (81% of the total) and would ask that the Commission investigate why so many community council seats were, and are still, unfilled.

Following the rules as outlined in your starting document, we note that 20 community councils are scheduled to disappear as a result of not having enough electors in them to reach the 800 minimum, and that 34 community council wards also face the same fate and believe that this is down to the fact that Ceredigion only has a total population of 73,300 in a land area of 688 square miles, giving a population density of 106 people per square mile, this is 2% the population density of the City of Cardiff, therefore ask that Ceredigion be given special status due to its lack of population.

We also disagree with the proposals for the seven council labelled as "urban", as this would leave Aberaeron, Cardigan, Lampeter, Llandysul and Tregaron with so few councillors as to make then unviable in the Commission's view and query at the same time why the Commission chose 600 electors per community council, when they would have known that Aberystwyth is the only town large enough for that to make any sense.

With regard to individual community councils, we recieved one representation regarding Llanrhystud where it was noted that even with the merger of the Deinol ward (78 electors) and Mefenydd ward (216 electors) you would still need to hive off part of the Haminiog ward (558 electors) in order to make two wards of 400 electors each, thus ensuring Llanrhystud's survival as a community council, but there is no way that such a division could happen.

Therefore, we wish to put on record that the Commission have an impossible task in this county and formally submit that the Commission abandon their review of Ceredigion and refer back to the Welsh Government that the only way to ensure fair representation in this county at the community level is to introduce the Single Transferrable Vote electoral system for the communities of Ceredigion at the next elections in May 2027

Yours sincerely
Harry Hayfield
Ceredigion Green Party Boundary Review Officer

[greatkingrat]

Changing to STV isn't going to magically make very small councils more viable, and if there are fewer candidates than seats, the electoral system is irrelevant.

[carolus]

North Yorkshire seem to have fallen at the last hurdle and decided to go back to the drawing board with the warding patterns for the proposed Harrogate and Scarborough town councils, with the intention of looking at having complete sets of single member wards instead. Since they need to both come up with these wards and consult on them, it seems almost certain that they won't now be in place for May 2024.

[J.G.Harston]

Aug 22, 2023 21:57:04 GMT carolus said:

North Yorkshire seem to have fallen at the last hurdle and decided tack to the drawing board with the warding patterns for the proposed Harrogate and Scarborough town councils, with the intention of looking at having complete sets of single member wards instead. Since they need to both come up with these wards and consult on them, it seems almost certain that they won't now be in place for May 2024.

(gets maps out)

[carolus]

There are some ongoing Welsh Community Reviews:

Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Swansea are all still in intial stage, nothing to report.

Caerphilly - Draft:

Bargoed/Pengam/Cefn Fforest - Internal transfers in Bargoed, and increase in councillors by one in three of the four wards (not Park). Tranfer of a new development from Bargoed to Pengam (which has no council). And then merge this larger Pengam with Cefn Fforest. The new community is not proposed to have a council. This has consequent effects on the UA boundaries for the wardsof Aberbargoed & Bargoed (-200 electors), Gilfach (+100 electors), and Cefn Fforest & Pengam (+100 electors).

Bedwas, Trethomas & Machen/Rudry - Merge these to councils to form B, T, M & R. Ward boundaries to remain as is. Bedwas moves from 4 to 5, and Llanfedw and Rhyd-y-Gwern to both drop from two to one councillors.

Caerphilly - some internal transfers between wards, and the increase from one to two councillors for Tonyfelin and Watford wards.

Gelligaer/Nelson - some internal transfers between wards in Gelligaer. Eight electors moved from Gelligaer to Nelson. Gelligaer Cascade and Ystrad Mynach wards increase by one each to 3 and 4. Greenhill to drop from 3 to 2.

Maesycwmmer/Pontllanfraith - Transfer 278 electors (a housing development) from M to the un-councilled P. Reduce M from 9 to 8 councillors. This has a consequent effect on the UA boundaries of the same transfer between M and P wards.

Rhymney - Merge the St David's (1) and Moriah (3) wards into St D & M (3).

Risca East/Risca West - Merge these two councils to form Risca. Wards would remain the same as the present wards in the two councils, except the Pontyminster Upper ward would move from 2 to 3 councillors. Various tweaks to ward names, particularly adding Welsh names to some which lack them.

Vale of Glamorgan - Draft:

Barry - Lots of internal changes, including the creation of an additional Waterfront ward. Various wards change their number of councillors, an the council as a whole goes from 22 to 23.

The Commission notes that the Council size policy submitted by VOGCPWG would mean that the Town
of Barry would be entitled to a council of 81 members which would improve the county wide variance,
however, the Commission has recommended a council membership increase of only 1 member due to
the need to provide for effective and convenient local government. The Commission is of the view that
a town council of 81 members would be unwieldly and not reflective of the representations received

. The same changes are applied to the UA, which means this is a pretty impactful set of changes, and adds three new councillors to the UA (two in the new Waterfront ward, and an extra in Dyfan).

Cowbridge with Llanblethian/Llanfair/Penllyn - transfer 16 electors from P to CwL. Merge Ll into CwL and rename CwL & L, as the wardsof Llanfair (2) and St Hilary (1). Redo the CwL wards, turning Cowbridge (5), Llanblethian East (4) and Llanblethian West (4) in to Cowbridge Central (7), Cowbridge NW (2), and Llanblethian (2)

Dinas Powys/Michaelston-le-Pit & Leckwith - below mentioned transfers to Penarth. Various internal transfers. Transfer 86 electors from M to DP. Minor consequent changes to the UA ward boundary.

Ewenny/St Bride's Major - Merge the two with a total of 13 councillors from 19.

Llancarfan/St Nicholas & Bonvilston/Wenvoe/Rhoose/St Georges-super-Ely/Peterston-super-Ely/Welsh St Donats. 132 electors from R to L. 104 from SGE to SNB, and 2 tfrom SNB to PE. Internal change in the SNB wards. 12 electors from WSB to SNB. 39 from L to SNB. Whole of St Lythans ward from W to L. New Ward in W called Brooklands. L reduces from 10 to 7, but with an extra ward. SNB increases from 10 to 12 with three wards of four. W reduces from 11 to 7. UA: 600 electors move from Wenvoe to St Nicholas & Llancarfan.

Llandough/Michaelston-le-Pit & Leckwith - Merge the two. Reduce the combined total of 17 councillors to 8.

Llandow/Llanmaes - Merge the two. Reduce the combined total of 17 councillors to 7.

Llantwit Major/Llanmaes - 5 electors transferred from Ls to LM. 10 electors interally transferred in LM. Also increase LM Boverton from 4 to 5 members.

Penarth/Sully & Lavernock/Dinas Powys - Creation of a new Cosmeston (1) ward in Penarth, from 693 electors from S&L this is almost all of the Lavernock ward, leaving less than 100 electors. Minor transfor from DP to Stanwell ward in Penarth, and from DP to Plymouth in Penarth. This increases Penarth from16 to 17, and decreases S&L from 9 to 7. This has knockon effects on the UA boundaries, particularly the creation of the new Cosmeston ward at UA level (+1 councillor).

Pendolyn/Welsh St Donats - Merge the two with a total of 8 councillors down from 16.

Penllyn - Minor internal transfers, the above transfer to CwL, and a transfer in of 23 electors from Welsh St Donats. also decrease the total councillors from 11 to 9.

Peterston-super-Ely/St Georges-super-Ely - merge the two into a single council with 7 down from 15 councillors.

St Donats/Wick - Merge the two with a total of 9 councillors from 15.