The first official steps to creating a Weymouth Town Council will be held this week.

An extra-ordinary meeting of the borough council is being held this Thursday (28) to set the legal process in motion.

The public will be allowed thirty minutes at the meeting to ask questions about the process – but key issues including the ward boundaries will not be decided.

Some councillor had previously expressed their concerns that the town would ‘miss out’ on taking over some of the town’s facilities unless action was taken to create the new council as soon as possible.

The move has been prompted by local government reorganisation which takes place in April 2019 when the existing borough and district councils in Dorset will be abolished – to be replaced by new unitary councils for rural Dorset and the Bournemouth and Poole area.

Existing town councils in Dorset; Dorchester, Bridport, Sherborne, Blandford, Shaftesbury and Gillingham, Lyme Regis have already been negotiating to take over some services currently run by the district or borough councils, but without a town council in Weymouth there has been no formal discussions.

Once created the new town council will be one of the largest in the South West and is expected to employ around fifty people. It will have 29 elected councillors from 12 wards – but the boundaries of these are yet to be confirmed.

Borough council members at this Thursday evening meeting are being asked to formally adopt the Order to create the new council.

It follows what is known as a Community Governance Review which took place between March 2017 and February 2018.

Normally a single Order would be needed but a second one is required in the case of Weymouth Town Council because a Dorset-wide boundary review is about to get underway which may suggest changes to existing council wards. Only once that review, by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, has been concluded can the Weymouth wards be agreed.

The current proposal is that Littlemoor, Radipole, Upwey and Broadwey, Westham East, Westham West, Wey Valley, and Weymouth East wards will each have two councillors while Melcombe Regis, Preston, Westham North, Weymouth West and Wyke Regis wards will have three.