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We’ve launched a Community Governance Review (CGR), a legal process to review, create and make changes to the governance arrangements for town and parish councils and parish areas.
Town and parish councils play a vital role in engaging with local people and helping their communities.
We want to make sure the electoral arrangements of parishes across North Somerset to remain robust, representative and able to meet new challenges.
We’re committed to making sure there’s clarity and transparency in the areas that local councils represent and that the electoral arrangements of parishes are appropriate, equal and easy to understand.
A CGR can make changes to local governance arrangements where there’s evidence to do so. This can include:
- creating, merging, altering or abolishing parishes
- the naming of parishes and the style of any new parishes
- the electoral arrangements for the parishes, including the ordinary year of election, the number of councillors, the number and boundaries of wards (if warded) and the name of any ward (if warded)
- grouping parishes under a common parish council or de-grouping parishes (we don’t currently have any grouped parishes in North Somerset).
A CGR can’t change the number of councillors on our council, change our district council ward boundaries or change individual town or parish councillors.
Tell us what you think by filling in the survey online or pick up a paper copy from one of our libraries before 11.59pm on Wednesday 30 April.
Your responses to the consultation will be reviewed by officers. Any draft recommendations for changes would be considered by all councillors later this year before another public consultation would take place.
Any changes to existing parish or town council arrangements as a result of the review would come into effect the same day as the next scheduled parish and town council elections, in May 2027.
Find out more about the review on our website.
If you’re part of a community group and you’d like our elections team to attend a meeting to explain more about the CGR, email electoral.services@n-somerset.gov.uk with details of the meeting.