Councillor submissions to the Cotswold Council electoral review This PDF document contains 4 submissions from Councillors. 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. Dear Sir. I write in support of the Compton Abdale Parish Meeting who have written asking for Compton Abdale to be placed in the new Chedworth and Churn Valley ward of Cotswold District Council. For the past 10 years I have been the Cotswold District Councillor for the Chedworth Ward covering Chedworth, Compton Abdale, Dowdeswell, Withington and Yanworth. I am indeed the only person who has been CDC Councillor for the Chedworth Ward as prior to my election Withington and Dowdeswell were in Sandywell Ward while Chedworth, Compton Abdale and Yanworth were in Fossehill Ward. Having attended the vast majority of Parish Council meetings and Parish Meetings at Withington, Yanworth, Dowdeswell Chedworth and Compton Abdale during that time, I must say that the issues facing Compton Abdale generally mirror those facing Chedworth and Yanworth rather than those facing Withington and Dowdeswell. Compton Abdale has close links with Yanworth to the East. Much of Compton Abdale parish and almost all of Yanworth parish as well as much of the northern part of Chedworth parish is in the ownership of the Stowell Park estate. Stowell Park was historically the seat of Lord Chedworth and the social and cultural links have continued to this day. The three Parishes were included in the same section of the 1804 Inclosure award map for this reason and have continued to be within the same CDC Ward since the formation of the Cotswold District Council in 1973/4. The Compton Farm Business Centre, certain operations at which have proved contentious is also in Compton Abdale Parish but administered from Yanworth by Stowell Park Estate. In recent times illegal “Raves," parties in Chedworth Woods with loud music which Police in riot gear had to break up 30 hours after they commenced have caused problems to Compton Abdale residents and a meeting I called to discuss a solution involved representatives from Compton Abdale, Yanworth, Chedworth, Colesbourne and the Stowell Park Estate. The disturbance was not noticed by Withington or Dowdeswell residents. To the north the windswept A40 road high on the top of of the Cotswold Hills forms both the Parish Boundary and a barrier to interaction between Compton Abdale in its valley to the south and Hazelton and Turkdean sprawling down into their valley to the north east and Shipton nestling in its valley to the north west. From a purely practical reasons placing Compton Abdale in Chedworth and Churn Valley ward would redress some of the imbalance in numbers both of parishes, proposed at 10 and 7 and of electorate proposed at 2301 and 2005, which represent 105.41% of the target electorate and 91.85% of the target electorate of 2183 respectively. If Compton Abdale is included in Chedworth and Churn Valley the resulting numbers will become 9 and 8 Parishes and 2201 and 2105 electorate respectively with variances from the mean of 2183 reduced to 100.82% and 96.42% respectively I submit that there is no sound reason for Compton Abdale to be in Sandywell Ward. Both practical and cultural considerations would place Compton Abdale in Chedworth and Churn Valley Ward. I therefore write to support the request from Compton Abdale Parish Meeting that you place Compton Abdale in the Chedworth and Churn Valley ward. Morrison, William From: Egan, Helen Sent: 24 April 2014 13:39 To: Morrison, William Subject: FW: Cotswold District Review Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Completed Hi Will, Please see the below submission for Cotswold. Regards, Helen From: sue coakley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 24 April 2014 12:12 To: Reviews@ Cc: [email protected] Subject: Cotswold District Review Dear Sir, I am writing to ask you to amend your proposal so as to create a single-member ward for the whole of Lechlade. The appropriate boundary would be the town development boundary. The current proposal ignores the community of Lechlade and is frankly unworkable. Lechlade is a small town very strong sense of community. There is one community facility in the heart of the town, one library and one medical centre. There is no logic to taking Moorgate and The Wern, who share all of these community facilities, and trying to attach them to Kempsford and Fairford with whom they have no common interests. Of course this means that that there would be more electors per ward member than is recommended, but it will be much more important for people to have a ward member able to represent the views of the whole town than to have a smaller number of electors to councillors. I am a current ward member for Kempsford and Lechlade so I can speak from real experience of the lack of common issues between these two communities. To also add in a piece of Fairford is to create a frankly unworkable situation for the new ward member who would have to work with three councils with few if any shared items on their agendas. It will also not be possible to build any real relationship with the electors in these three separate and disparate areas. This would reduce the ward member’s effectiveness and undermine the benefits of the ratio of electors to members that you are trying to achieve. I understand that Lechlade Town Council, Fairford Town Council and Kempsford Parish Council are all recommending that you make the whole of Lechlade Town a single-member ward and combine Kempsford with Fairford South to create a totally separate ward. With the current and planned growth of housing in Fairford this will soon reach the desired ratio of electors to members. In contrast the draft Local Plan proposes only 140 new homes for Lechlade over the next 20 years. 1 Yours faithfully, Sue Cllr Sue Coakley Kempsford Lechlade 2 25th April 2014 The Review Officer (Cotswold), Local Government Boundary Commission for England, Layden House, 76‐86 Turnmill Street, London, ECIM 5TG Dear Sirs, Proposed New Ward Boundaries; Driffield and Harnhill Parish, I am writing to you to fully support the request from Driffield and Harnhill Parish Council that their parish continues to be placed with the Ampneys and not moved within the proposed Siddington and Cerney Rural Ward. The simple fact is that the parish has always looked to the Ampneys and to Ampney Crucis in particular, and this relationship continues to the present day. All the parishes mentioned above are within my division as a county councillor, and I can see no valid reason to break this historic link. Yours faithfully Shaun D E Parsons – County Councillor Recipients should be aware that all e-mails and attachments sent and received by West Oxfordshire and/or Cotswold District Council may be accessible to others in the Council for business or litigation purposes, and/or disclosed to a third party under the Freedom of Information or Data Protection Acts. If you have received this e-mail in error please inform the sender and delete it. 2.