Nick Hughes,
Committee Services Manager introduced the item and gave a
presentation where the following key points were made:
- Thanet
District Council had had its proposal for a councillor number of 42
agreed by the Local Government Boundaries Commission for England
(LGBCE);
- Ward
consultations on those proposals opened on 19 March 2024 and would
end on 27 May 2024;
- The
purpose for this working party meeting was to make for the working
party to submit proposals on the warding patterns for the
district;
- The
current consultation by the LGBCE was on warding patterns and
number of councillors per ward;
- Individual
organisations, political parties and the Council could submit
proposals;
- The
Commission was looking for views on which communities should be
part of the same ward, what facilities like schools, parks, leisure
centres and shopping centres did these communities
share;
- The
Commission would also consider issues that included how communities
were divided by features such as major roads or railway
lines;
- This whole
process was generally handled in a non-political way by officers
and the Commission;
- This was a
very difficult process for officers as they needed to remain
politically neutral, but the proposed warding patterns would
naturally be highly politically contentious.
Mr Hughes asked if
the Boundaries and Electoral Arrangements Working Party had any
proposals to make for consideration by Council.
Members of the
working party asked questions and made comments as
follows:
- It was
important for Council to lay out the ward boundaries in order to
ascertain the number of residents in each ward. This would in turn
help determine the number of councillors needed for each
ward;
- The
electoral register numbers were used to determine how many
residents were in each ward;
- Had other
Councils put forward any proposals for the numbers for councillors
for each?
- It was
difficult for Councillors to come up with such figures without
adequate information on the number of voters in each
ward;
- Officers
should put together proposals for the working party to
consider;
- Would
parishing be done first before submitting these
proposals?
- The Chair
advised the meeting that these proposals would need to be submitted
first and once the Council got some feedback from the LGBCE,
parishing would then followed;
- This might
mean carrying out re-warding within existing boundaries if
required;
- After this
review would there be wards that were parished between two parish
areas?
- How would
Councillors forward information to the Commission?
- Three
Member wards would have about 8,300 residents, which would be
unwieldy;
- The
working party would best propose two Member wards;
- Would it
be acceptable for the working party to propose two Member
wards?
- Two Member
wards were ideal at district level and one Member wards at parish
level would give more flexibility;
- Re-warding
at district level might cause problems for future parish level
elections as some parish wards may end up being outside the parish
boundaries;
- It was
important to start thinking about parishing Westwood
Cross.
Nick Hughes
responded as follows:
- The issue
of an area being deprived or not deprived was not a material
consideration for this review process;
- The
Commission was looking at electoral equality, that each vote should
count equally;
- Councillors could propose a new ward boundaries map. However,
this was a very difficult task;
- Members
could simply forward proposals such as this community should be
under one ward or that there should be such and such a ward without
offering a map. Any proposals should be accompanied by valid
reasons;
- The
Commission would further consult on their proposed boundaries map
and a set of criteria;
- If the
current situation was that one ward was over represented with the
other underrepresented, the review would try to correct that
situation to create electoral equity for all areas.
Councillor Everitt
proposed, Councillor Kup seconded and Members agreed the following
recommendations:
1.
That the working party do not make any
recommendations on where the electoral boundaries should
be;
2.
That TDC should submit a consultation
response to the LGBCE asking for two Member Wards with a
flexibility for one Member Wards where applicable, but wards should
not be bigger than this (no three or four member wards).
The working party
gave the following as the reasons for the above
proposals:
1. Three Member Wards
would be too big under the new calculation model to be
used;
2. Historically three
Member Wards have not worked well;
3. Giving Broadstairs as
an example: With the new population estimates Broadstairs based on
the current town border would have to be represented by 7.4
councillors to maintain electoral equality. This would mean that
using exclusively two member wards would not work, but with seven
councillors, three wards with two councillors each and one ward
with one councillor would work. Thanet Villages could work in a
similar way.