Weymouth Town Council has submitted its agreed response on Dorset Council’s Community Governance Review and is encouraging people to contribute their views before the consultation closes next Monday 23rd May.
The review will define Weymouth’s main boundary, council wards, and the number of councillors needed to represent residents’ views. The full review also covers all parishes in Dorset and the online survey is available on Dorset Council’s website until midnight on the 23rd of May, with proposal 47 relating to Weymouth.
The current proposal from Dorset Council recommends reducing the number of Weymouth Town Council wards from 12 to 8, and the number of councillors from 29 to 24.
But Weymouth Town Council’s response takes into consideration around 2,500 extra homes planned for the town by 2026 and says increasing the overall number of town councillors from 29 to 30 would ensure fair representation for Weymouth’s ever-growing population.
The Community Governance Review is about aligning boundaries to communities, ensuring that small communities are not divided, and that they have a clear identify and can sufficiently represent Weymouth’s diverse communities. Parish boundaries in England are used as the building-blocks for upper-level, unitary boundaries so it is important to get those building blocks right.
The extra houses will save residents money because the cost of services the town council provides, such as beach, toilets and parks will be spread evenly over more households.
It’s important to have enough councillors to allow good governance and ensure scrutiny of the way £4M of public money is spent. Weymouth is not like any other parish in Dorset but is comparable to other similar-sized councils in England like Chippenham, Shrewsbury, and Sutton Coldfield. Each town councillor costs £1,000 per year, so the cost of increasing the overall number would remain low and would be more than covered by the extra households.
Cllr Luke Wakeling has been leading the work on Weymouth Town Council’s submission, which was agreed by councillors at the annual council meeting on Wednesday 11thMay. View Weymouth Town Council’s full response on the committee papers for Full Council.
Residents are encouraged to submit their own views before the closing date. Consultation responses will be discussed at a future meeting of Dorset Council in July.
MORE ON WEYMOUTH TOWN COUNCIL’S RESPONSE
Compared to other town and parish ward sizes in Dorset, Weymouth continues to grow, and the original boundaries are out of date.
Increasing the overall number of councillors from 29 to 30 would give residents a fair spread of representatives to keep up with the town’s ever-growing population.
And so Weymouth Town Council is asking the public to support its comments on the Community Governance Review and object to the Dorset Council proposals.
You can access the consultation by clicking here https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/councillors-committees-elections/elections-and-voting/community-governance-review
Proposal 47 relates to Weymouth. Therefore the council is asking residents to oppose recommendation 47 and support the proposals agreed by Weymouth Town Council, and also support the boundary changes to ensure natural communities are not split between wards.
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