West Seaton and Seaton Hole Association ​ Electoral review for East Devon District: Inclusion of the south-western part of Seaton in the Beer and Branscombe ward Statement 20 February 2017 ​ Our Association considered this proposal at its Annual General Meeting on 16 February 2017 and overwhelmingly rejected it. While we appreciate your aim of equalising electorates in the different wards, we feel that in this case other considerations outweigh your particular proposal. Your report notes that in order to expand the electorate of Beer and Branscombe ward, you considered the inclusion of either Salcombe Regis from Sidmouth parish or the parish of Southleigh’, but these were rejected because they ‘would not meet our statutory criteria of community identity.’ Instead you propose to include an area of Seaton ‘around Beer Road’ in the ward. Bizarrely, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Commission that West Seaton citizens might have feelings about having their community identity taken away! Our Association represents the ​ ​ western side of Seaton and most of our 70 members live in the area which it is proposed to transfer to Beer and Branscombe (there is no other residents’ association in this particular area). We feel strongly that we belong to Seaton and we wish to be represented together with neighbouring areas of the town which, on your proposal, would remain in Seaton ward. We believe that your proposal for our area will do more damage to community identity than either the Salcombe or Southleigh alternatives. In their cases, the whole of the particular communities, and in the case of Southleigh the whole parish, would become part of Beer and Branscombe. In our case, the proposal would divide one side of Bunts Lane, Castle Hill and Marlpit Lane from the other, and would generally divide the local community in the west of Seaton and the parish of Seaton. We also find the proposal for a separate Town Council ward electing a single councillor, while the rest of the town would be another ward electing eleven councillors, very anachronistic. We note that our inclusion in Beer and Branscombe ward would raise that ward’s electorate by 5 per cent above the average, while leaving us in Seaton would probably leave Seaton above by little more. In the circumstances, we believe this proposal should be withdrawn, as any marginal ​ benefit in balancing electoral numbers is heavily outweighed by the disruption to community identity. .