(Councillor Peter Thompson declared that he
was the Mayor of Bury St Edmunds Town Council. He remained in the
meeting for the consideration of this item and voted.)
Council considered this report, which sought
approval for the final recommendations emanating from the interim
Community Governance Review (CGR).
Councillor Carol Bull, Portfolio Holder for
Governance, drew relevant issues to the attention of Council. She
thanked the Community Governance Review Task and Finish Group and
the Business Partner (Governance) for their work on the review, and
extended her thanks to members, town and parish councils and other
groups that had engaged with the process.
On 22 March 2022, Council considered and
approved the draft recommendations for consultation and at that
meeting it was recognised by members that a
general consensus on those recommendations was not always
going to be achievable. The consultation on the draft
recommendations was held between April and end of June 2022,
following which the Task and Finish Group considered each of the 10
issues (summarised in section 2.6 of the report) in detail and the
evidence within the consultation responses before making the final
recommendations. This included exercising their delegated authority
to amend and re-consult on revised recommendations for ‘Issue
1: Bury St Edmunds (Out Westgate) Town Ward and Bury St Edmunds
(Westgate) Town Ward’ and ‘Issue 7: Properties on
Wickham Street between Wickhambrook and
Denston’ to ensure it made its
final recommendations based on sufficient evidence provided.
It had also been
recommended that delegated authority be given to officers to take
the necessary steps to implement the changes so that they took
effect from 1 April 2023. This included enabling engagement to take
place with the Local Government Boundary Commission for England
(LGBCE) to request any necessary changes to district wards and
county divisions so that they remained aligned with parish
boundaries.
A discussion was held on Issue 4, which sought
to extend the boundary of Bury St Edmunds parish to include the
Lark Grange housing development, which was currently located within
Rushbrooke with Rougham parish, as
detailed in Appendix A. Lark Grange was located
in the district ward of Moreton Hall.
Recognising that a general
consensus was not achievable in this case and that
opportunities for enabling electoral boundaries to be looked at
again as part of future CGRs, Councillor Peter Thompson, one of the
ward members for Moreton Hall, spoke moderately in support of the
final recommendation for Issue 4 and was relatively satisfied with
the proposal.
In response, Councillor Bull informed Council
that the feedback from the consultation had been carefully
considered and with the evidence presented to the Task and Finish
Group, the final recommendation had been made on that basis.
On the motion of Councillor Bull, seconded by
Councillor Robert Nobbs, it was put to the vote and with the vote
being 51 for the motion, none against and one abstention, it
was
Resolved: That
1. the
recommendations, as set out in Appendices A to J to Report number:
COU/WS/22/018, be adopted by the Council as the Final
Recommendations for the purposes of the interim Community
Governance Review.
2. The
Director for HR, Governance and Regulatory be authorised to write
to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) to
request approval to make changes to the protected arrangements for
Bury St Edmunds Town Council and Haverhill Town Council.
3.
Subject to approval from the LGBCE where appropriate, the Director
for HR, Governance and Regulatory be authorised to prepare the
Reorganisation Order to take effect on 1 April 2023.
4. The
Director for HR, Governance and Regulatory be authorised to write
to the LGBCE to request necessary consequential changes to the
district ward boundaries for Moreton Hall ward, Rougham ward, Red
Lodge ward and Manor ward and the County Council division
boundaries for Newmarket and Red Lodge division and Mildenhall
division.