Boundary Commission to conduct ward audit

AREVIEW will be carried out by the Boundary Commission of Halton Borough Council’s wards.

A spokeswoman for the local authority confirmed Runcorn and Widnes will be subject to the audit later this year.

A consultation will run from the end of June until the start of September.

There are currently 56 councillors spread across 21 wards in the borough.

The spokeswoman said: “The council is soon to be the subject of a ward boundary review, undertaken by the Local Government Boundary Commission For England.

“The commission will be consulting on their proposals from the end of June 2018 to the beginning of September 2018.

“Individuals and organisations will be able to submit their views to the Boundary Commission during that period.

“Further information about how to comment will be published by the commission nearer the time.”

Calls have also been made to reduce the number of councillors across Halton from three to two per ward in a bid to save money.

A petition has been started on change.org addressed to Halton Borough Council (HBC) leader Rob Polhill.

At time of writing, more than 200 people had given their support to the call.

The petition said: “While the amount of Government funding has decreased nationally across the board, we think HBC should look in house to save money before automatically putting as much burden as they possibly can on the residents of this borough.

“We propose that Rob Polhill reduces the amount of councillors from three to a maximum of two per ward from this new tax year 2018.

“If HBC are to force us taxpayers into paying councillors allowances, and expenses, then we as residents think it’s only fair that we have a final say on the amount of councillors each ward has.”

Of the 21 wards in the borough, 16 of these have three councillors.

In Runcorn this includes the Grange, Halton Brook, Halton Castle, Halton Lea, Heath, Mersey, Norton North, and Norton South wards.

The Widnes wards with three councillors each are Appleton, Birchfield, Broadheath, Ditton, Farnworth, Halton View, Hough Green, and Kingsway.

The petition claims that if the wards had only two councillors each instead of three, around £200,000 would be saved each year.

If this number was further reduced to only one councillor per ward, the petition suggests more than £480,000 would be saved annually.

It said: “In these times of austerity we believe everybody should be pulling together, and HBC should be setting examples on how to save money from within.

“We feel it’s only right that savings are found from amongst councillors.”

The Weekly News posed the question of reducing the numbers of councillors in a bid to save money to the local authority in November 2016.

At the time, HBC said it was ‘not considering that at present’.

A spokeswoman said: “The Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBC) is required by law to periodically review the electoral arrangements of every principal local authority in England.

“The last review for Halton recommended councillor numbers stay the same.

“The council doesn’t believe that circumstances have changed significantly since then to merit triggering such a review in advance of the next periodic one.”

In 2016, neighbouring local authority Knowsley reduced its number of wards from 21 to 15 and cut councillors from 63 to 45.

Some Widnes residents were affected as a new Whiston And Cronton ward was created as part of the changes.