Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence, due to Council Business, were received from Councillors C Beard, D Topping and R West; apologies for absence were received from Councillors M Asquith and S Jones. 

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda

No interests were declared.

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 meeting. Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman 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 three clear working days’ notice, in writing, in order for an informed answer to be given.

There were no members of the public wishing to speak or ask a question.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 24^th June 2010.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting of the Governance and Constitution Committee held on 24 June 2010 be approved as a correct record.

To receive and consider the advice of the Wilmslow Community Governance Review Sub-Committee with a view to making recommendations to Council on the following:

1. the number of councillors to serve on each of the new parish councils; and

2. the ward names and boundaries, and the number of councillors for each ward in the Wilmslow parish, bearing in mind the need to achieve overall electoral equality (ie. the number of  electors per councillor) as far as possible.

The Wilmslow Community Governance Review Sub-Committee will be meeting on 5^th July to consider this matter and the Sub-Committee’s recommendations will be reported at the Committee’s meeting.

To assist the Committee, the briefing paper on Formulating the Council’s Draft Recommendation as considered at the previous meeting is attached.

The Officers are also preparing a paper on warding arrangements for Wilmslow parish and this will be available at the meeting.

The Committee met to consider the recommendations of the Wilmslow Community Governance Review Sub Committee with a view to making recommendations to Council on the number of Councillors to serve on each of the new Parish Councils, and the ward names, boundaries and number of Councillors for each ward in the Wilmslow Parish.

Detailed background information was provided to the Committee in the form of the reports considered by the Wilmslow Community Governance Review Sub Committee at its meetings on 24 June and 5 July 2010; the minutes of the latter meeting contained the detailed recommendations of the Sub Committee to this Committee and these also had been previously circulated. 

Members were informed that, as part of its considerations, the Sub Committee had included comparator information on the size of Parish Councils in order to assist in determining the appropriate number of Parish Councillors for each of the three Parishes, and options for the warding of the proposed Wilmslow Parish.

The comparator information listed a number of comparable towns and Parishes throughout Cheshire East and gave electorate totals, electorate ratio per Councillor and number of wards in respect of each.  Two options for the warding of Wilmslow were considered; Option 1 was based on the five traditional wards of the former Macclesfield Borough Council and, using a ratio of approximately 1,250 electors to one Councillor, the number of Councillors for each ward had been determined.

It was noted that the warding arrangements had been complicated by the fact that there was an ongoing Boundary Review with the final recommendations of the Boundary Commission due to be announced the following day (13^th July 2010).   An electoral changes Order would then need to be laid in draft in both Houses of Parliament but the timescales for the laying of the order were not yet clear.

It was reported that if the Boundary Commission proposals for Wilmslow were implemented, as anticipated, adjustments would need to be made to the proposed wards and these adjustments formed the basis of Option 2 recommended by the Sub Committee.  In essence, the number of wards in the Wilmslow Parish would be reduced from five to four, as the ward boundaries would no longer be coterminous with polling district boundaries within that Parish. Given the uncertainty posed by the current Boundary Review, and the need to comply with the Governance Review timetable, it was necessary for the Sub-Committee to put forward two alternative sets of proposals with regard to the warding of Wilmslow.

In considering both the numbers of Councillors and the warding arrangements the Sub Committee had had regard to the need to achieve electoral equality as far as possible whilst also ensuring that the size of each Parish Council reflected the particular needs and circumstances of the Parish.  The Sub-Committee had reviewed its previous recommendation, which had been endorsed by the Constitution Committee,  that for the Parish of Handforth, the election of Parish Councillors should be from the area of the Parish as a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.