The new District Council boundaries for The Vale of White Horse District Council were recently decided. Instead of 7 wards Abingdon will now have 5 and each ward will get two district councillors from the 2015 elections.
There are currently 21 town councillors and they need to be divided among those 5 wards and their future is still to be decided.
The proposal put out for consultation is:
To rename Fitzharris North parish ward as Fitzharris Wildmoor
To rename Fitzharris South parish ward as Fitzharris Ock
To reduce the number of councillors for Abingdon-on-Thames town council
from 21 to 19 and to allocate them by parish ward as follows:
Abbey 2
Caldecott 4
Dunmore 4
Fitzharris Ock 2
Fitzharris Wildmoor 1
Northcourt 2
Peachcroft 4
If you do have any comments on the proposal send replies on or before 31 May 2014 by email to cgr@southandvale.gov.uk
or write to the Vale of White Horse District Council at:
CGR
Vale of White Horse District Council
Legal and Democratic Services
Benson Lane
Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford
OX10 8ED
..is there another map to show Fitzharris Ock and F. Wildmoor?
Is there a reason why a town the size of Abingdon needs even 19 town councillors? Given the duties of the council, that seems like a very large number.
local councilwork has always seemed very inbred to me – like the vicar of dibley made real – apparently they even pray before their meetings !?
The challenge David is that with a very small staff then the councillors at town level end up having to be pretty hands on. The real issue isnt that there are too many councillors, but that there are too many councils.
To my mind, the old borough system would work much better for abingdon, where there are only two layers. Activitoes where there are economies of scale could be done by the county and activities where local proximity and knowledge are prevalent could fall to the borough.
Iain is right; how many voters understand what these councils are and what the responsibilities of each? Some one should do a survey and find out!
When was that graphic created, Victorian times? If anyone in the District Council would like the services of a professional graphic designer, for free, to create something a lot more up to date and legible, please let me know.
I created the graphic as I could not find anything to which I had permission using MS Paint 🙂
http://www.lgbce.org.uk/__documents/lgbce/reviews/vale-of-white-horse/final-recommendations/vofwh_it_sh1_so.pdf
This is the original of the map (note – boundaries shown represent those for district rather than parish (dont ask – if i tried to explain it i’d even bore myself).
John, the boundaries for our ward would be bordered by ock st, farringdon road and wooton road (ish)
…plus the tithe farm estate (sorry)
Clear as mud then?!
Iain is right about the town council being hands on, but further to that, it has a lot of committees, say, compared with the district council, and most of us are on five or six committees. Thus, obviously, the fewer councillors there are, the more committees one would have to be on, one consequence of which would be “there would not be enough days in the week”.
Further to any lingering doubt about what each council does, this page should serve to remove such doubt:
http://www.abingdon.gov.uk/town-council/town-council-services. This ‘page’ also includes a link to a ‘Services by other councils’. Inwardly digest!