Dorchester Conservatives say they are ‘concerned’ by the proposals for new wards

Chairman of the local branch, Ian Gosling, says the proposals do not follow the Commission’s own guidelines.

The Review recommends that Dorchester be divided into two wards, Dorchester West and Dorchester East, the first returning three councillors and the second returning two councillors.

In a submission to the Commission Mr Gosling points out that the organisation’s own ‘best practice’ recommendations are for single member wards.

“We are concerned about the proposals made in the Review for the redrawing of the boundaries of the wards in Dorchester for the purposes of the new unitary authority which is to be elected next year,” said Mr Gosling in his submission on behalf of the Dorchester Branch of the West Dorset Conservative Association.

“The document states that only existing councillors were consulted and that the proposal received the support of most of them. What in fact happened was that there was a concerted effort by certain members of the various councils concerned to ensure that as many multi-member wards as possible were favoured throughout West Dorset since the belief is that this will better protect their existing seats…”

“We believe that single member wards enable the views and needs of the electors to be better represented than multi-member wards and are thus more democratic than multi-member wards.”

Mr Gosling argues that in being the sole councillor for a ward there is an incentive to represent the whole area and each one of his electors and that it also males it easier to electors to know who to contact.

Said Mr Gosling: “Maintaining single member wards would have the added advantage of staying closer to the boundaries which have existed for many years for the purposes of defining the wards for elections to the Town Council and West Dorset District Council.”

He points out that the preference for single member wards is also supported by the Labour Party locally.

“We are in favour of dividing Dorchester into five one member wards, made up of the four existing wards, adjusted to allow for the creation of a new ward for Poundbury. The latter has grown to a size which justifies it becoming a separate ward and it has issues which are distinct from those which affect Dorchester.”

At a recent debate on the issue at Dorchester Town Council the Liberal Democrat group said it favoured multi-member wards for several reasons – continuity of representation when a councillor was ill or on holiday; using each other’s expertise and sharing the work on complex case loads.

+ The current boundary review consultation end of August 27th.

It is looking at new boundary proposals for electoral wards for the 82 councillors who will make up the new Dorset Council when it comes into being in April 2019.

Once the Commission has considered all the responses to the consultation, final recommendations will be published in October 2018. A draft order will then be laid in both Houses of Parliament under the negative resolution procedure. Subject to parliamentary scrutiny, the new electoral arrangements are scheduled to come into effect at the authority’s first election in May 2019.