Horsham District Council to carry out community governance review on all parishes

Horsham has 32 parish councils and three neighbourhood councils. The aim of the review is to ensure that they reflect their communities and provide effective and convenient local governance.

This covers everything from whether boundary changes are needed, to how many councillors each parish council should have, to whether councils need to be changed, abolished or created.

The review was approved during a meeting of the governance committee on Wednesday (February 18). A six-week consultation with residents, businesses, councils and community groups will start in May.

Alexander Jeffery (Lib Dem, Southwater South & Shipley) said that undertaking a review was ‘vital to ensure that we continue to fulfil our statutory obligations’.

With the council due to be dissolved in 2028, he warned that the unitary authority which will take its place would have more immediate matters to attend to, meaning any review would likely not happen for several years.

Mr Jeffery added: “It is therefore appropriate that we take the opportunity now to afford our communities the chance to have their say and decide how they are to be governed prior to the creation of a unitary authority, with all responses being taken into consideration, including representations from individual parish councillors.”

Nigel Emery (Lib Dem, Holbrook West) agreed, adding: “This actually couldn’t come at a better time. We are about to see the most significant to local government since 1974 and the role of the parish councils will be greater than it’s ever been.”

These reviews should be carried out every ten to 15 years. The last one was in 2013.

The meeting was told that the council had received informal requests for a review from some communities where things such as population numbers had changed over time.

It was also reported that an email had been circulated raising concerns about the timing of the review and whether it was simply a political exercise to change boundaries.

Gill Perry (Green, Henfield) said that, while people she had spoken to seemed to welcome the review, she had been asked for reassurances that the council was not going into things with pre-conceived ideas about what it wanted.

Ms Perry added: “The atmosphere around generally about elections being changed and local government review, people are beginning to suspect things when maybe there is nothing there. We have to be extra-specially careful to reassure everyone.”

Any ideas which come out of the consultation will be looked at, amended where appropriate, and then put out to consultation for a second time in the summer.

At the end of the process, any reorganisation which is needed will be put to the full council for approval.