29 July 2014
The Local Government Boundary Commission for England has today published its Final Recommendations for changing wards in Braintree District.
The Commission is proposing a council size of 49 members, comprising 6 single member wards, 17 two member wards and 3 three member wards.
The current size of the council is 60 members. Witham and Braintree Green Party, whilst recognising the need for a review to ensure that the number of electors per councillor is sensible (within + or – 10% of average) has consistently raised concerns about the affect on the rural areas of a large reduction in councillor numbers.
During the review, the Greens proposed a council size of 59 members, which would have largely maintained representation in rural areas. The 49 seat proposal from the Commission was based on the 50 seat proposal from the Conservatives and specific ward proposals from Labour. It will mean that at the baseline year of 2019 (taking into account projected population increase), each councillor will represent 2385 voters, an increase of 44% from 1999, when the last review took place.
Views submitted during the review process from parish councils in the district consistently called for rural representation to be maintained, to avoid very large rural wards being created or wards linking parishes which do not have strong ties.
However those views have been turned down by the Commission.
The Greens also agreed with representations from Witham that the proposed wards there did not make sense in terms of community ties, but the Commission turned those views down too.
Cllr. James Abbott, Leader of the Green Group on BDC said
“Right from the start we were concerned that this review was far more about reducing the number of councillors than anything else. At first sight it might seem that reducing the costs of having councillors is a good thing, but the costs of each district councillor are not high and allowances have rightly been restrained in recent years. We believe that local democracy must come first.
What these changes do is to concentrate power even more in the hands of the Council Cabinet relative to non-Cabinet councillors. These changes also reduce the influence of parishes and the rural areas of Braintree District – which make up about 50% of the population. And it is the very opposite of localism. Local communities may now find it that bit harder to get things done, that bit harder for their voices to be heard. At the same time changes in Government rules means that the district is going to face much increased development pressures. So the risk is there that communities will feel more disconnect from the decision making processes affecting them.”
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