Public to be consulted on planned changes to council ward boundaries

Members of the public will get the chance to comment on planned changes to council ward boundaries, as part of a review of local electoral arrangements.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland has proposed recommendations for councillor numbers in each of Scotland’s 32 council areas and the number, boundaries and names of wards.

Some of the proposals the public are being asked to consider include cutting councillor numbers by four – to 1,219 - and removing one ward, relative to existing arrangements.

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Ronnie Hinds, chairman of the Commission, said: “Consultation is a vital part of our work and having completed our consultation with councils, and amended a number of our proposals in the light of these, we now want to hear from local residents, community groups and organisations.

“We have a statutory obligation to conduct reviews and we are required to ensure that the number of electors per councillor in each ward in a council area is as nearly as may be the same - but subject to that we also need to take account of local ties and the public are best placed to tell us about these.

“We look forward to positive engagement with communities across Scotland over the next 12 weeks and have today launched our consultation portal which will allow people to see our proposals and submit their comments to us online including suggested revisions to the maps setting out ward boundaries.

“Paper copies of our proposals are available at display points across council areas.”

When reviewing electoral arrangements the commission will take account of the following factors:

• the interests of effective and convenient local government
• within each council, each councillor should represent the same number of electors as nearly as may be
• local ties which would be broken by making a particular boundary
• the desirability of fixing boundaries that are easily identifiable
• special geographical considerations

The review will result in recommendations to Scottish ministers for the number of councillors on each council, the number and boundaries of wards and the number of councillors in each ward.

The commission expects to make its recommendations in 2016, and that the resulting wards will be available for the local government elections in May 2017.