Parish and Town Council Submissions to the Gloucestershire County Council Electoral Review
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Parish and town council submissions to the Gloucestershire County Council electoral review. This PDF document contains 26 submissions from parish and town councils. Some versions of Adobe allow the viewer to move quickly between bookmarks. Click on the submission you would like to view. If you are not taken to that page, please scroll through the document. Page 1 of 1 Skerten, Alex From: Du nkeyson, Nicholas Sent: 25 July 2011 09:04 To: Skerten, Alex Subject: FW: Electoral Review of Gloucestershire Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Co mpleted From: ANITA SACH [ Sent: 25 July 2011 08:41 To: Reviews@ Subject: Electoral Review of Gloucestershire Alkington Parish Council strongly objects to the proposal to move it from the Vale ward to the Wotton ward. In your recommendations you claim that the revised divisions 'best reflect community identities in Gloucestershire'. You also state 'We have sought to reflect communication links, geographic factors and evidence of community identity. In the case of Alkington Parish Council (and our immediate neighbour Ham & Stone parish), your recommendations have not reflected these points at all. We have no transport links with Wotton-under-Edge so people tend to go to Berkeley for doctors, post office, shopping, library etc. The country roads used to reach Wotton from Alkington are very steep and narrow and by no means direct. There are no communication links with Wotton as Alkington parish adjoins Berkeley but not Wotton. In addition Wotton is not the automatic location for children to attend school. Children from the parish go to school in Berkeley, Dursley and Thornbury as well as Wotton. Wotton is in a different policing area from us so there would be no automatic contact with the police and County Councillor as exists now. Geographically Wotton is a Cotswold town and Alkington is in the Severn Vale - there is an escarpment between us. We feel that the boundary review has not taken into account the natural links we have with the Vale area and is trying to impose us on an area with which we have no affinity and would be difficult for the Wotton County Councillor to represent us fairly. As a parish council we work with the other parishes in the Vale area, and occasionally have joint meetings, because we often have issues of mutual interest as our parishes border each other. We request that you rethink your proposals and keep Alkington within the Vale ward. Anita Sach Clerk to Alkington Parish Council 26/07/2011 Arlingham Parish Council 22nd July 2011 Dear Sir / Madam Electoral Review of Gloucestershire: Draft Recommendation The Arlingham Parish Council has asked me to write to you regarding the Electorial Review of Gloucestershire. The Arlingham Parish Council is part of a group of Parishes called Severn Voice. This group comprises parishes which line the east bank of the river Severn; Arlingham; Elmore; Frampton on Severn; Fretherne with Saul; Hardwicke; Longney and Epney; Moreton Valence, Slimbridge and Whitminster. The group represents the common views of the parishes on such matters as the Environment Agency’s proposals for the Severn Estuary. The Council would like to suggest that any Electoral Boundary changes should ensure that the Severn Voice Parishes have one County Council representative to reflect the views of Severn Voice. Yours sincerely Andrea Welby Arlingham Parish Clerk On behalf of the Arlingham Parish Council ASHCHURCH RURAL PARISH COUNCIL 31st July 2011 Electoral Review of Gloucestershire County Council 2010 – 2011 Gloucestershire County Council - Division Boundaries Ashchurch Rural Parish Council would request that the Local Government Boundary Comm ission consider our subm ission on t his important matter for our community. Convenient and Effective Local Government The existing Count y Council Division Boundary for Ashchurch, Cleeve and Oxenton Hill fits extremely we ll into our rural area and is co- terminus with both the Borough and Parish Wards which certainly helps in effective local government. Prior to the last Boundary revi ew in 2005, the old county boundary for Ashchurch included Northway, which is a large buil t up urban area, which very clearly did not fi t into the rural nature of our parish. Due to the m any concerns over this at th is time local residents raised two petitions (one being presented to Par liament by our then M.P. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) calling for the parish to be spl it so as to re cognise the separate identities of each area. Th is was ultimately approved and the new County Council Divisi on Boundary for Ashchu rch represents this rural identity. Therefore we strongly believe that any proposal to re-introduce Northway back into t he County Boundary for Ashchurch would not only no l onger reflect the rural nature of this division but woul d be against two petitions that our local residents raised and we believe would in fact be very much against convenient and effective Local Government. ........Continued 1 Community Identity Ashchurch Rural Parish Council cons ider that there are many areas of community identi ty that are good exam ples why t he current Gloucestershire County Council elector al division for Ashchurch, Cleeve and Oxenton Hill works so well. Some examples of t his would be the very rural nature that this division covers – i.e. Stoke Orchard, Tred ington. Prescott, Oxenton, Walton Cardiff, Southam , Gotheringt on, Wood mancote etc. who all have very similar needs. Recently when rura l Post Offices and telephone boxes were under threat of closure/ rem oval, the knowledge and experience gained from across this division was invaluable to our Parish. Issues like the lack of rural bus services and hea lth care are also very similar across this current divi sion. Another excel lent example would be the floods of 2007 and the subsequent loss drinking of water, under the um brella of this current division the rura l vill ages and ham lets were very quickl y organised and identifies for help & distribution. We therefore firm ly believe this im portant co mmunity identity m ust b e maintained. Should the Boundary Comm ission consider that an increase in elector al nu mbers is necessary then we wo uld suggest that the Commission consider the area east of Ashchurch due to its rural identity. Name of Division We support the current name for the Ashchurch, Cleeve and Oxenton Hill Division. Cathy Reid Parish Clerk Ashchurch Rural Parish Council 2 Page 1 of 1 Skerten, Alex From: Berkeley Town Clerk [ Sent: 18 July 2011 22:35 To: Skerten, Alex Subject: Gloucestershire County Council - Electoral Review Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Re d To Alex Skerten Local Government Boundary Commission Berkeley Town Council considered the electoral review for Gloucestershire County Council and wishes to make the following comments Berkeley has no connection with Cam. We are a rural community that is closer to other parishes in the Severn Vale. We will lose our distinctive historical identity if we are linked with Cam. We will be dominated by a larger urban conurbation. We have existing ties with surrounding parishes of Ham & Stone and Alkington. We would rather remain in a Severn Vale based electoral division Regards Debbie Spiers Town Clerk Berkeley Town Council 19/07/2011 Page 1 of 1 Skerten, Alex From: Sent: 19 July 2011 09:45 To: Skerten, Alex Subject: re boundary commission review-bishops cleeve Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Red Gloucestershire County Council Electoral Review Bishops Cleeve Parish Council Submission to LGBCE Bishops Cleeve Division We believe the electoral figures for Bishops Cleeve in 2016 are too low given tha t outline planning permission has been granted for up to 450 dwellings to the North of Bishops Cleeve. Full planning permission has recently been granted for the first phase by Tewkesbury Borough Council and we anticipate that construction of all dwellings will be complete by 2016. This is inconsistent with the growth of only 100 electors betwee n 2011 and 2016 as indicated in the LGBCE figur es. Assuming an average of 2 electors per dwelling would increase the 2016 figure by a further 800 electors. It is further note d that this could be a significant underestimate as there are applications for around a further 1,000 dwellings which will be determined by a Planning Inspector in September 2011. We n ote that the Tewkesbury Borough Council Ward of Oxenton Hill has been spli t between the proposed electoral divisions of Tewkesbury Newtown (Oxenton Parish) and Bishops Cleeve (Stoke Orchard and Gotherington Parishes). Bishops Cleeve is a large urban conurbation very different in character to the parishes contained within Oxento n Hill Ward. We would therefo re propose moving Got herington and Stoke Orchard Parishes from Bishops Cleeve Div ision to Tewkesbury Ne wtown Division. This would significantly improve coterminosity with the Borough ward boundaries. After accounting for the further 800 electors for 2016, Bishops Cleeve Di vision would still be larger than the proposed Tewkesbury and Churchdown Divisions and would not significantly increase the maximum variance for any division (15% as against current 14% proposal). The second tab on the attached spreadsheet includes the impact of our proposed changes to the current proposals. Tewkesbury and Forest of Dean District Divisions We fail to see the rationale for allocating 7 electoral divisions to Tewkesbury District and 8 to Forest of Dean District. The sizes of the two Districts will be virtually identical in 2016 based on the review figures (68,042 versus 68,650) and would be virtually identical based on our above proposed 400 increase in the Bishops Cleeve 2016 projected electorate. We would therefore propose parity in the number of electoral divisions between Tewkesbury and Forest of Dean Districts.