At its meeting on 6 July 2017 the Boundary Review Panel made the following recommendations to the Council at this meeting.
RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL
(1) That a community governance review be undertaken to assess:
(i) the parish warding arrangements and
(ii) the number of councillors
for the Chichester City Council administrative area
(2) That the review be publicised to allow persons or bodies who may be interested to be able to make representations.
(3) That the review be concluded within 12 months and that the consent for any recommendations be sought from the Local Government Boundary
Commission for England.
(4) That it be noted that any review recommendations could not be implemented without express consent of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.
Minutes:
The Council considered the fourth of four recommendations relating to community governance reviews (CGR) made to it by the Boundary Review Panel (BRevP) at its meeting on 6 July 2017, the text of which was set out on the face of the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).
At Mrs Hamilton’s invitation the recommendation was proposed by Mr J Ridd, the BRevP chairman and seconded by Mr G V McAra, the BRevP vice-chairman.
Mr Ridd presented the recommendation. He explained that this CGR request by Chichester City Council (CCC) arose in consequence of boundary changes which would be brought into effect after electoral reviews of the Chichester District Council (CDC) and West Sussex County Council (WSCC) local government areas. In short the CCC boundaries were now no longer co-terminous with the CDC and WSCC boundaries. CCC had decided to realign its boundaries to achieve co-terminosity by having four city wards with four members each and one ward with two members, which would result in reduction of two councillors from the current 20 to 18 members. The BRevP supported CCC’s request for a CGR. It should be noted that in the event after a CGR consultation the changes were agreed the consent of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) would first be required, which the LGBCE would not unreasonably withhold, before the changes could be brought into effect.
During a short discussion of this item Mr Dignum (the Leader of the Council and a CCC member) and Mr R E Plowman (who was also a CCC member) expressed their gratitude to the BRevP for making its supportive recommendation. Clearly the absurdity of voters having to vote in two different polling stations on the same day for CCC and CDC and/or WSCC elections had to be avoided by means of a CGR. Without casting aspersions on the basis of the BRevP’s reasoning and recommendation in this case, Mr J Brown and Mr Ransley remarked that it was important when CGRs were undertaken that the outcomes did not undermine effective representation of communities by their elected councillors ie by smaller areas being subsumed within larger ones, in particular rural areas becoming part of urban areas.
Mrs Hamilton proposed that the recommendation on the face of the agenda be the subject of a vote by the Council.
Decision
The Council voted on a show of hands in favour of making the resolution set out below with no votes against and one abstention.
RESOLVED
That a community governance review be undertaken to assess:
(i) the parish warding arrangements and
(ii) the number of councillors
for the Chichester City Council administrative area.
(2) That the review be publicised to allow persons or bodies who may be interested to be able to make representations.
(3) That the review be concluded within 12 months and that the consent for any recommendations be sought from the Local Government Boundary
Commission for England.
(4) That it be noted that any review recommendations could not be implemented without express consent of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.
[Note At the end of this item there was a short adjournment between 15:43 and 15:55]