Recommendations from the Community Governance Review for Windlesham Parish Council have been submitted to Surrey Heath Borough Council.
When the consultation period ended on 28th October 2019, after having ran for an eleven week period, 668 individual responses had been received by Surrey Heath Borough Council (SHBC), this equals approximately 5% of the total population of the Windlesham Parish Council (WPC) area - based on electorate figure on 01.09.2019. Of these responses, the majority came from Windlesham residents with 507 submitted. This represents a figure of approximately 14.7% of the electors registered in the village.
Residents consulted were asked which of the following options they would find most favourable for WPC:
- Option 1: To create a new parish in Windlesham and create a new Parish Council covering the area as per the petitioners’ request.
- Option 2: To re-instate an equal number of councillors representing each village within Windlesham Parish Council. This option reflected a request received from Windlesham Parish Council in January 2019.
- Option 3: To create a new parish ward for North Windlesham and amend the councillor representation in the parish wards to best reflect electoral equality in the parish.
- Option 4: To make no change to the current arrangements.
Overwhelmingly, Option 1 was selected with 499 responses choosing this option - representing 74.7% of the total responses received.
Those responding in favour of Option 1 (To create a new parish and parish council) raised the following points:
- The creation of a standalone parish council would bring about an increased sense of community cohesion and identity.
- It would give Windlesham residents better representation.
- A standalone parish council would be best placed to deliver the Windlesham Neighbourhood Plan.
- Parts of the village i.e. so called 'North Windlesham' were not represented by Windlesham councillors. As it is considered part of Bagshot this divides the actual village arbitrarily and also separates the actual village residents representatives, to the detriment of the village cohesion and meeting of all local needs of the village as a whole
- More effective and accountable relationships with Councillors
- A standalone parish council would better look after the interests of Windlesham residents.
The recommended outcome by officers at the Council, was advising Councillors to RESOLVE
- that the findings of the recent consultation process be noted;
- to not proceed to a further stage of the Community Governance Review process for the following reasons: a. There is insufficient support from residents currently living within the WPC area and from within Windlesham village for the creation of a new parish and parish council b. The break-up of WPC and the creation of a new parish council for Windlesham village only would have a negative impact on effective and convenient local government. c. A new parish council would not be best placed to deliver quality services efficiently and effectively; and
- that Windlesham Parish Council and the Petitioners be advised of the above decision accordingly.
Following the meeting of Full Council at SHBC on 26th February 2020, a consultative group made up of representatives from the Borough Council, Parish Council, the Petitioners and Community groups has been set-up to identify a way forward.
Further information on the Stage One Consultation can be found in the attached document below.
