Issue - meetings

To devise a proposal for new polling district, polling place and polling station arrangements for consultation.

At its meeting on 2^nd June 2011, the Constitution Committee had authorised the publication of the notice of a Polling Districts and Polling Places Review and had appointed the Sub-Committee with delegated powers to undertake the Review of Polling Districts and Polling Places as required by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The Act had introduced a statutory duty for local authorities to carry out a review of their parliamentary Polling Districts and Polling Places by 31^st December 2007, and at least every four years thereafter.

Polling Districts were areas created by the division of a constituency, ward or division into smaller parts within which a Polling Place could be determined. Polling Places were buildings or areas in which Polling Stations could be located, Polling Stations being rooms or buildings within which the poll took place.

The Review had three stages:

(1)          The Preliminary Stage

The first stage of the process involved giving notice of the Review. This had been done at the end of June 2011.  

(2)               The Proposal Stage

The Council now needed to devise a proposal for new Polling District and Polling Place arrangements. There was no requirement to change any existing arrangements. However, any change, or decision to make no change, had to be supported by a reason. All interested parties, including elected members and disability groups, would be notified of the review and invited to make representations.

In practical terms, suitable polling stations should ideally be identified first so that these can be used to build polling places and then polling districts. The aim should be to identify polling stations within the ward in question.

In making a decision on the proposals, there were two key factors which had to be addressed:

?       the reasonable requirements of the electors; and

?       accessibility for disabled persons to the probable Polling Stations within the Polling Place.

(3)   The Consultation Stage

The consultation stage dealt with representations and comments on the Council’s proposals for Polling Districts and Places and involved:

?       a compulsory submission from the Returning Officer; and

?       submissions from other persons and bodies.

Following the consultation stage, the Authority would need to make its final decisions on the review, taking into account all the representations received.

A timetable for the review had been circulated with the agenda.

Under the Council’s Constitution, the final decision on the review rested with the Council. However, the decision had to be taken before 1^st December 2011 which would require a special Council meeting. As there would be no other business for such a meeting, Council at its meeting on 13^th October would be asked to delegate to the Constitution Committee authority to take the final decision on the review at the Committee’s scheduled meeting on 17^th November 2011.

The Officers reported that the Boundary Commission for England had announced its intention to carry out a review of Parliamentary constituency boundaries in England. The Commission’s initial proposals had been published on 13^th September. This would be followed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5