Community governance review

We have conducted a review of town and parish council governance arrangements across the Cheshire East Borough, which came into effect on 1 April 2023.

Cheshire East Council is responsible for electoral and governance arrangements within the borough including:

• town and parish boundaries
• numbers of town and parish councillors
• arrangements for wards and the meetings of groups of parish councils

The review, which followed government and Local Government Boundary Commission for England guidance, was to ensure community governance arrangements continued to reflect local identities and facilitate convenient and effective local government. It is good practice to review community governance every 10-15 years. Cheshire East Council was created in 2009 and this was the first full review of town and parish council governance.

The review commenced in late 2018 and has now been completed.

Cheshire East undertook an initial pre-consultation survey between October 2019 and February 2020 on the scope of the review and topics and proposals that should be included. In June 2021, a meeting of full council agreed to conduct a public consultation on the proposals.

The community governance review draft recommendations report made a series of draft proposals for consultation at the end of 2021. This 12-week consultation stage provided people and stakeholder bodies with an opportunity to make the case for alternative proposals or to endorse the draft proposals as they were. By the end of the consultation, on 28 November 2021, the council had received more than 4,800 responses.

The views of all consultee respondents and key stakeholders were considered alongside a range of other important matters, including legislation, central government guidance and the terms of reference of the review. Recommendations were produced and considered by Members in February and March 2022.

Council officers made recommendations to the council’s cross-party community governance review sub-committee on 4 April 2022, and the corporate policy committee on 14 April 2022. On 27 April 2022, Cheshire East Council resolved to agree the recommendations of those bodies in a report, relating to the governance arrangements of all of the Borough’s town and parish councils. Full details and minutes from the meeting can be found on the Council Website.

The Community Governance Review Order (PDF, 36.96 MB)

The final recommendations and reasons (PDF, 7.3MB)

Hard copies of the Order will be deposited in the Council’s main offices to be made available for public inspection at all reasonable times.

This review, including the extensive consultation and engagement with stakeholders, will ensure that town and parish arrangements meet local needs and are fit for purpose for the future.

This review of community governance does not include the electoral arrangements for borough council or parliamentary seats. These would be the responsibility of Whitehall (the Local Government Boundary Commission and the Boundary Commission for England, respectively) and are not currently proposed.