Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor P Groves.

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

No declarations of interest were made.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the meeting on any matter relevant to the work of the body in question.  Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman or person presiding will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers. Members of the public are not required to give notice to use this facility. However, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours’ notice is encouraged.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide at least three clear working days’ notice in writing and should include the question with that notice. This will enable an informed answer to be given.

Cllr Sue Helliwell stated that she was concerned about the proposal for Kidsgrove to be moved into Newcastle Under Lyme as part of this review, and as Alsager was on the border, in future it could be linked with Newcastle Under Lyme and Stoke on Trent.  She also commented on changes to parish boundaries and asked if a review could look at Close Lane, Haslington be included as part of Alsager rather than Haslington.

Mrs Sylvia Dyke commented on the increase in house building, especially in the Alsager area, and the number of houses allocated in the Local Plan,  and that it would led to an increase in the number of electorate and felt that this had not been taken into account in the proposals. 

In response it was stated that it was anticipated that boundary reviews would be held every five years, so it was recognised that changes were occurring and reviews would be required more often.  In relation to Close Lane, this area formed a small part of a large polling area with a low population density and any review would have to look at the complete area and not just small area of Close Lane. 

To agree the detail of the Council’s response to the Parliamentary Boundary Review consultation

The Cabinet Member considered a report on the Council’s response to the Parliamentary Boundary Review Consultation.

The Boundary Commission had published a consultation paper in September 2016 outlining a range of proposals to reduce the number of Parliamentary constituencies, taken along with similar proposals for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to reduce the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600 seats.  The consultation closed on 5 December 2016. 

The criteria imposed on the Boundary Commission was that the electorate for each constituency should be in a range of 71,031 to 78,507.  These limits on the size of the electorate were far narrower than at present and impose serious limitations on alternative configurations.

Whilst recognising that the limits on numbers imposed quite severe limitations on the Boundary Commission, concern had been expressed that the proposals as they impacted on Cheshire East would see some natural communities (e.g. Knutsford and Wilmslow) represented by two MPs, with the boundaries between the constituencies being seen as arbitrary.

As a Council, Cheshire East valued its link with its Members of Parliament, and this would be made far more difficult under the current proposals where the vast majority of the electorate in Altrincham and Tatton Park and Bramhall and Poynton would be in metropolitan, urban areas, rather than the more rural Cheshire East. 

All Members of the Council had been invited to submit comments on the proposed Council’s response in advance of the meeting. Comments received from Councillors M Sewart, H Gaddum, D Hough, J Rhodes and J Hammond were discussed and considered.

RESOLVED:

That the Council respond to the Parliamentary Boundary Review Consultation by the required deadline, with the document appended to this minute.