Issue - meetings

The Democracy and Governance Manager introduced the report which recommended the draft final proposals on the community review.

Following the draft proposals being agreed at County Council on 23 October 2013 and Cabinet on 19 November 2013, all Town and Community Councils were sent copies of the draft proposals at the end of November to seek observations by the end of January 2014.  Attached as appendix A to the report was a list of all Town and Community Councils and other interested parties who had responded.  All of the comments received had been carefully considered in preparing the draft final proposals which were attached as appendix B to the report.

In arriving at the draft final proposals, officers had considered:

·         The need to address any existing anomalies

·         The need to comply with the guiding principles

·         The need to take account of the wishes of the Town and Community Councils and other interested parties

·         The need to avoid practical difficulties with the Local Government elections scheduled for 2017 as detailed in paragraph 6.03 of appendix B

·         Avoiding any obvious inconsistency of approach between similar Town or Community Councils

For 29 of the Town and Community Councils, the draft final proposals had not changed from the draft proposals previously agreed by Council and Cabinet.  The consultation on the draft proposals had led to differences in what was proposed for the following Town and Community Councils, full details of which were contained in the report:

1.    Hawarden

2.    Hope

3.    Penyffordd

4.    Mold

5.    Whitford

The next stage of the process was for Cabinet to consider the draft final proposals, together with the observations of County Council.  Once agreed by Cabinet, they would appear on the Council’s website. 

Where the proposals involved changes to external community boundaries, a report would be submitted to the Local Democracy Boundary Commission for Wales recommending them.

            Councillor Billy Mullin, Cabinet Member for Corporate Management moved the recommendation and thanked the Democracy and Governance Manager for his thorough work on a complex issue.  This was seconded by Councillor Bernie Attridge.

            In response to questions from Councillor Nigel Steele-Mortimer and Councillor Richard Lloyd, the Democracy and Governance Manager explained the proposals were to seek to have the same ratio of electors to Councillors across the wards within the same community.  There would be differences in this ratio from one community to another according to the size of the electorate in each community.   

However, this did not prevent the issues on boundaries raised by Councillor Richard Lloyd and Hilary McGuill being raised with the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales when it undertook its review of county electorate divisions after the proposed election in 2017.

Councillor Haydn Bateman welcomed the two minor amendments to Mold Broncoed Ward following which followed suggestions made by Mold Town Council.

RESOLVED:

That the draft proposals contained in appendix B be submitted to Cabinet for Consideration.