The Chief Executive presented a report, in order to seek the agreement of Council to approve the Terms of Reference for a review of Community Arrangements of all Town & Community Councils in the Bridgend Council area and set up a Member Panel to oversee the review.

By way of background, he advised that the last full Community review was finalised in 2009 and would normally follow a 10-year cycle. The delays to the completion of the Bridgend Electoral Review and the pandemic resulted in insufficient time to undertake a full review in time for the Local Elections in May 2022, though reviews were undertaken in three County Borough locations before this date.

The Chief Executive advised, that a review can consider one or more of the following options:

•           creating, merging, altering or abolishing communities;

•           the naming of communities and the style of new communities and the  creation of town councils;

•           the electoral arrangements for communities (for instance, the council size; the number of councillors to be elected to the council, and community warding);

•           grouping communities under a common community council or de-grouping communities

Whilst having a Terms of Reference for the review is not a statutory requirement, it was certainly best practice. This would set out the scope of the review, and include a timetable for carrying out the review, including dates for public consultation.  The proposed Terms of Reference were attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

The adoption of the Terms of Reference by Council will commence the review. If Council chose to accept the final recommendations of the review, concluded after public consultation, it would be necessary to submit the recommendations to the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales which, following a final 6 week period for representations, will prepare an Order to implement the changes.

It was proposed that Council delegate the determination of Members to sit on the Panel to Group Leaders, with the Panel having 9 Members (5 Labour Members and 4 Opposition Members), including representation from the 4 towns and 3 valleys. The Chief Executive added, that the Panel would hopefully also be as far as possible, both politically and gender balanced.

He concluded his submission by confirming that any changes to the arrangement of communities will take effect at the next scheduled Town and Community elections in May 2027.

Members asked a number of questions, which were responded to by the Chief Executive and/or the Group Manager – Business Support, following which it was

RESOLVED:                             That Council agreed to:

(1)   Adopt Terms of Reference for a Community Arrangements Review of all Town & Community Councils in the Bridgend Council area.

(2)   Set up a Community Review Member Panel to review responses to the consultation and agree the draft and final proposals for any changes. The Member Panel will make their recommendations to Council for final approval.

(3)   Delegate the membership of the Panel to the Group Leaders to determine.