The View from Shute End...
District Councillor Annette Drake reports

Wokingham District Council will never be the same again.

The holidays are over and so work starts again for all, but the Council will never be the same again. From September we have changed to the Cabinet style of Westminster!

There are nine Portfolio members of the Cabinet who are selected from the ruling group (the Liberal Democrats). The leader of the ruling party chairs the Cabinet. The Cabinet, which may be open to the public, will make all decisions, but I do not think there will be any public participation. All Cabinet decisions will go to the full Council. If there are any questions or issues raised there, those decisions will be questioned by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee who will make recommendations to the full Council.

I hasten to add that we have no choice in this; we have to switch to this style of local government. The only remaining committees will be Development Control & the District Parish Liaison. I shall have more on this subject once we have had some experience of how it works. Rest assured that I shall be here for you all; and as I understand that there will be no committees I will probably have more time for the Ward.

Boundary changes

Talking of Hurst Ward brings me to the boundary changes which, under new legislation, all Unitary Authorities have to carry out so that each Councillor has 2,000 electorate. This Ward has only 1,500 which means an additional 500 electorate will have to be found from elsewhere within the district. Councillors at Wokingham have not been able to agree on how this can be done, so the Conservative Group and the Liberal Democrats will put forward their separate proposals, and an independent commission will decide for us.

In any event this will mean that boundaries for Hurst Ward will remain as they are now for the Parish Council and alter only for the District Council. This means that the 1,500 electorate in Hurst will continue to vote for Parish and District Council members at their usual polling station, and the additional 500 electorate will vote for their Parish Councillor at their current polling station, and for their District Councillor at the Hurst polling station.

Once again the view from Shute End is not crystal clear, but it is new legislation that has brought about this situation.