Agenda item

Report by Cllr Tony Deane, Chairman of the Boundary Review Working Party.

Declaration of interest

Cllr Jonathon Seed declared a personal interest in this item by virtue of his being a parliamentary agent.

Cllr Tony Deane, Chairman of the Working Party on the Parliamentary Boundary Review presented a report on such a review. The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) had published its initial proposals for new Parliamentary constituencies and was consulting on the proposals until 5 December 2011. Accordingly, Council’s views were sought on the proposals being put forward for the Council’s administrative area.

Council at its meeting on 17 May 2011 established a Working Party to consider the initial proposals and to prepare a response for consideration by Council. The Working Party had since met on three occasions, the notes from which were presented as background information.

The Working Party at its meeting on 18 October 2011 agreed to recommend a motion to this Council meeting, details of which were presented. All Councillors were given the opportunity to submit any revised proposals for consideration by the Working Party on 24 October 2011 prior to its recommendations to this Council meeting. In response to this, revised proposals were submitted in respect of the Lavingtons and Erlestoke division with the Devizes constituency and for the Till and Wylye division within the Salisbury constituency. However, neither proposal was agreed by the Working Party who also confirmed the draft recommendations now presented and moved by Cllr Deane and duly seconded as follows:

a)    That the Division of Lyneham reverts to the proposed Chippenham Constituency. 

b)    That the Council accepts with reluctance the proposals for the Corsham local government Divisions to be split between two Constituencies and the resultant split of both Town Council and Community Area boundaries.

c)    That the following constituencies be re-named:-

               I.        the Chippenham Constituency be re-named North Wiltshire; and

             II.        the Trowbridge Constituency be re-named West Wiltshire.

During the course of debate, the following amendment was proposed by Cllr Ian West and seconded by Cllr Jon Hubbard:

To add:

d)    ‘That the Till and Wylye Valley division move to the Salisbury constituency and the Tisbury division move to the Warminster and Shaftesbury constituency.’

On being put to the vote, the amendment was LOST.

A further amendment was moved by Cllr Jeff Osborn and seconded by Cllr Helen Osborn to delete c) ii from the motion. On being put to the vote, the amendment was LOST.

A further amendment was moved by Cllr Chris Caswill and seconded by Cllr Bill Douglas to amend c) i from the motion to read as follows:

c)         ‘the Chippenham Constituency be re-named Chippenham and North Wiltshire’

On being put to the vote, the amendment was LOST.

The Leader thanked the Working Party for all its hard work undertaken in a relatively short space of time.

The original motion was then put to the vote and CARRIED and it was therefore

Resolved:

a)        That the Division of Lyneham reverts to the proposed Chippenham Constituency.

b)        That the Council accepts with reluctance the proposals for the Corsham local government Divisions to be split between two Constituencies and the resultant split of both Town Council and Community Area boundaries.

c)        That the following constituencies be re-named:-

             i.       the Chippenham Constituency be re-named North Wiltshire; and

            ii.       the Trowbridge Constituency be re-named West Wiltshire.

The following Councillors requested that their votes against the above decisions be recorded:

Cllrs Jeff Osborn, Chris Caswill, Ian West, Ricky Rogers, Desna Allen, Steve Oldrieve, John Knight and Helen Osborn.

Cllr Richard Gamble requested his abstention from voting be recorded.