Proposals to merge Wilmslow, Handforth and Chorley

Wilmslow, Handforth and Chorley parishes could be merged to form a new parish following a review of all the parishes within Cheshire East.

Cheshire East Council has carried out a review of the governance arrangements of all of the borough's town and parish councils and is recommending a number of changes to parish areas and parish electoral arrangements.

The Council requested that initial submissions from the existing parish councils and electors and other interested organisations were submitted prior to 31st January 2020 and has held informal workshops with elected Members.

The Council is now making draft recommendations for changes to the community governance arrangements of the parishes of the Borough which include merging the existing parishes of Wilmslow, Handforth and Chorley to create a new enlarged parish which will be called Wilmslow.

The review states "Cheshire East Council considers that there will be merit in merging the existing parish of Handforth with the parish of Wilmslow as, to all intents and purposes, they form a single community. It will be appropriate to consider whether there should be separate representation of the electors of Handforth on the merged parish council."

The draft proposals also include transferring the new housing development between Clay Lane and Sagars Road from the parish of Styal to the proposed enlarged parish of Wilmslow.

The review states "The new development is adjacent to the existing Handforth settlement area and so will form part of the wider community of Wilmslow - Handforth. As this development is not adjacent to Styal village, it is not considered that this will form part of the Styal community."

The review recommends that the parish of Styal will remain.

The Handforth Garden Village development has not been taken into account as that will be developed after 2025 which is outside the period for which the Borough Council is required by legislation to give consideration to changes in electoral numbers.

If approved at a meeting of the Community Governance Review Sub Committee on Friday 26th February, the draft recommendations will be the subject of a 12-week public consultation.

If required, adjustments will then be made to develop the final recommendations which will go before the Full Council for approval in Autumn 2021.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Nick Jones
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 2:31 pm
What a great idea... !

WTC needs a shake up, Not the productive Cllrs working together, but specifically those impeding its function currently controlling its direction.

Whilst enough has been said about the National embarrassment of HPC.. still no one has yet fallen on their sword..

Unfortunately it will halt WTC plan to but The Library from CEC (that's not for sale in any event .. as per previous threads ) but WTC may now have to spend the £1/2 M reserve they are sat on with the wider local community

The price of arrogance !.
Jonathan Follows
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 3:06 pm
Yet another proposal to change our local councils in the hope that we think that progress is being made. Nothing changes, but time, effort and money will be wasted in making yet another change to our local councils, which started with the creation of Cheshire East and continues to this day. Just stop messing around with the structure and concentrate on doing your jobs please!
Jean Berman
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 3:25 pm
What another waste of time and money or is it to create more jobsworths ?

You would better spending the money it would cost on repairing our hundreds of potholes !!!
Clive Cooksey
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 4:30 pm
No way! End of message. I have lost count the number of times this has been tried.
Simon Rodrigues
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 5:53 pm
Waste of money wont fix things, unless its a way of getting rid of dead wood then im all for it.
David Jefferay
Wednesday 24th February 2021 at 7:21 pm
To explain a little, at the meeting of the Constitution Committee in September 2018, it resolved that a Borough wide review of the governance arrangements of all of the Boroughs Town and Parish Councils be undertaken, concluding well in advance of the May 2023 elections.

This was considered necessary following the adoption of the Local Plan in 2017 and the allocation of sites for an additional 36,000 new houses across the Borough. Boundaries can become anomalous as new houses are built across boundaries resulting in people being in different parishes from their neighbours and Government advises "In such circumstances, the council should consider undertaking a community governance review".

Further, "A community governance review offers an opportunity to put in place strong, clearly defined boundaries, tied to firm ground features, and remove the many anomalous parish boundaries that exist in England."

According to the report 'There would appear to be no direct financial implications to this Council, which can be identified at this stage' and 'There are no direct HR implications'.
Pete Taylor
Thursday 25th February 2021 at 2:31 pm
If this proposal goes ahead the title Wilmslow Town Council will be a nonsense- may I suggest a "new" alternative? How about Wilmslow Urban District Council?

What goes around comes around.
Stuart Redgard
Thursday 25th February 2021 at 3:56 pm
David

Thank you for your input.

I agree that the current boundaries between these parishes are in some places anomalous and that this could have been an opportunity to resolve them. However, the proposal just doesn’t do that and neither is it inline with the referendum to create Wilmslow, Handforth and Styal “civil parishes” back in about 2010. If I recall correctly, at this time the electorate were offered a choice of creating one parish that included all three communities or separate parishes for each. The electorate chose the latter.