Back in January the Boundary Commission set the new boundaries for the County Council elections in May 2013. The number of County Councillors in Oxfordshire are to be reduced. Abingdon as a result will have three County Councillors (rather than three and a bit). New ward areas are Abingdon East, Abingdon North, and Abingdon South.
More recently the Boundary Commission have been asked to look at new wards for the Abingdon District Council elections (in 2015). Both County and District Councils are run by Cabinets with ordinary Councillors or members having less influence. So fewer ordinary members are thought necessary.
Currently there are 14 District Councillors in Abingdon, in seven 2 Member wards. This number needs to be reduced to 10 Councillors. So the Vale of White Horse District Council have put forward a scheme with five 2 Member wards.
Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council do not really agree with the reduction in the number of councillors, but of the options put forward seem to agree with the idea of five 2 Member wards, although some individual Councillors have also written in with the idea of ten 1 Member wards.
It is up to the Boundary Commission to decide what is best and define the exact boundaries, after further consultation. I found this information on their website.
In Abingdon My county councillor, Peter Jones, has been on extended sick leave for many months and there seems to be no prospect of him returning or a by-election being called. Since this seems to be the policy, it makes sense for there to be two councillors covering each ward, so that if one goes sick the other can cover until the next election.
That is interesting. The last thing I saw – from a District Councillor – was the 10-ward 1 member option, so I had assumed that was what was happening. No doubt one of them who reads your blog will clarify.
There was a ten ward proposal put to the vale by the boundary commission plus a revised version suggested by the liberal group. Unfortunately both of these ended up crossing a number of natural community boundaries (eg saxton road was is three wards) in prder to keep voter numbers evenly spread. The five ward proposal ended up as the vale’s recommendation to the boundary commission as it seemed to break fewer natural communities and also created mini teams for an area, more like we have today and as David describes in his post.
My understanding is the names are not fixed and I know the town council has already requested that the names be reviewed.
Any set of ward boundary propsals will split some natura community boundaries because natural communities don’t develop in uniform numbers.
So while Iain is right that the proposal for ten single member wards put forward by the Lib Dems does split Saxton Road three ways it is worth noting that it is currently split between two wards and that other roads in the town like the Oxford raod and Wootton Road are also split between a number of wards.
The advantage of having ten single member wards is that communities like Peachcroft, Long Furlong, Barton and the town centre each fit quite well into one ward each.
The two member ward proposal put forward by the Vale combines Tithe Farm and Ladygrove in South Abingdon with area round Albert Park and all the way up to the top of Wootton Road. That really isn’t one community. The way their proposed wards are named suggests very little local knowledge at all.
@davidofabingdon – generally councillors are given leave of absence if there is a genuine reason why they are temporarily unable to carry out their duties but should be able to return later in their term of office. I’ve known councillors take leave while being treated for cancer, serving abroad in the armed forces or other health, family or work reasons. this is usually done by all party agreement.
If a councillor is not realistically going to return to their duties there should be a by-election.
Fully agree with you on the naming Neil
I prefered the five ward solution to the two ten ward versions is that there are fewer (although not zero) breaks of natural communities.
There are pros and cons to both solutions, and this feels like the least worst solution to me.