Agenda and minutes

In the absence of any serving Members of the Committee, Members agreed to postpone the appointment of a Chairman of the Electoral Matters Committee for 2021/22 to the following meeting of the Committee.

A nomination was received for Councillor H. Jones to serve as Chairman for the meeting.  The nomination was proposed by Councillor M. Thompson and seconded by Councillor A. Beaumont.

RESOLVED that

(a)      A decision on the appointment of the Chairman of the Electoral Matters Committee for the 2021/22 municipal year be postponed for consideration at the following meeting of the Committee; and

(b)      Councillor H. Jones be appointed as Chairman at this meeting of the Committee.

In the absence of any serving Members of the Committee, Members agreed to postpone the appointment of a Vice Chairman of the Electoral Matters Committee for 2021/22 to the following meeting of the Committee.

RESOLVED that a decision be taken on the appointment of the Vice Chairman of the Electoral Matters Committee for 2021/22 at the following meeting of the Committee.

Apologies for absence were received on behalf of Councillors S. Colella, R. Deeming, M. Glass, S. Hession, R. Hunter, M. Middleton and H. Rone-Clarke.

It was confirmed that Councillors A. Beaumont, S. Douglas, H. Jones, M. Thompson, J. King and A. Kriss were attending as Councillors Hession, Colella, Deeming, Glass, Hunter and Middleton’s substitutes respectively.

To invite Councillors to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Other Disclosable Interests they may have in items on the agenda, and to confirm the nature of those interests.

There were no declarations of interest.

In the absence of the members of the Electoral Matters Committee it was agreed that a vote on the accuracy of the minutes of the previous meeting of the Committee would be postponed for consideration at the following meeting.

RESOLVED that a decision be taken on the accuracy of the minutes of the meeting of the Electoral Matters Committee held on 2^nd February 2021 at the next meeting of the Committee.

The Electoral Services Manager presented a report detailing the background to the Community Governance Review for the proposed Parish within the current Stoke Parish area. 

The Committee was informed that a petition had been received in 2020 which proposed that a separate Parish Council should be established for Stoke Heath, consisting of polling district RHA.  This proposal had been subject to consultation and a number of responses had been received from local stakeholders.  These responses had been discussed at the previous meeting of the Committee, held in February 2021, when Members had decided not to make any changes.  The second round of consultation had now been completed.  Only one response had been received during this round of consultation, from the existing Parish Council, which had indicated that its position remained unchanged, though the points that had been raised during the first round of consultation would be taken on board.

The recommendation was proposed by Councillor A. Beaumont and seconded by Councillor A. Kriss.

RESOLVED that, in respect of the review of a parish separate from Stoke Parish Council consisting of polling district RHA, no change be undertaken.