Agenda and minutes

Cllr Chris Turrell was elected as Chairman.

Cllr Dale Birch was elected Vice-Chairman

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

No declarations of interest were received.

This report sets out proposals for changes to Bracknell Forest’s polling districts and locations following a comprehensive review.

The Steering Group is asked to review the current arrangements and highlight any particular areas where further investigations are required, and to formulate recommendations for changes to be effective from the publication of the revised register on 1 December 2018.  If an election were to be called prior to publication the existing polling districts and places would be used.

The Head of Democratic and Registration Services gave some background on the review and it was noted that an in depth review was being completed in 2018 as there were no scheduled elections. A statutory review was due in 2019 however, this would be less detailed and will mean any new arrangements as a result of the review could be reviewed following the borough and parish elections in May 2019.

The steering group received a presentation on the Returning Officer’s recommendations for each polling district. The current arrangements were reviewed and potential changes were proposed.  identified where further investigation was required.

Following discussion, the following points were noted and recommendations agreed:

WX, WY – Ascot

The steering group agreed to support the proposal to make no changes to the current arrangements.

BA, BC, BB, WM – Binfield with Warfield

It was noted that the electorate was anticipated to increase in the coming years due to housing development in the polling district area and Binfield Memorial Hall would not have capacity for more electors. As a result, it was suggested that two areas of the new development were designated as separate polling districts. It was suggested that the Amen corner could vote at Farley Wood polling station until such time as a suitable community facility was built on the site.

In relation to the new housing estate on the former Blue Mountain site the steering group supported using Farley Wood as an additional polling station for the interim period until a community centre was built at the new housing estate.  It was noted that the facility was not expected for some years. The steering group supported that the polling district for the Blue Mountain development area should also include the Temple Park area.

The steering group supported using Farley Wood as an additional polling station for the interim period until a community centre was built at the housing estate on the former Blue Mountain site which wasn’t expected for some years. It was noted that it must be clear to residents when changes of polling station were interim or permanent changes.

The report had recommended the creation of a new polling district for the Woodhurst Park development in Warfield which was within the present WM polling district, and had proposed that Jocks Lane Pavilion be designated as the polling station for the voters in the new polling district. It was proposed that the electors in the existing WM polling district would continue to vote at Brownlow Memorial Hall.  The group agreed that Cllr Leake would investigate the Jocks Lane Pavilion polling station option with Warfield Parish Council and would report back at the next meeting.

The steering group agreed to support using Farley wood as a polling station for houses on the Blue Mountain and Temple Park area. It was also agreed that Cllr Leake would investigate use of Jocks Lane as a polling station

BE, Bullbrook

The steering group supported proposals to make Bullbrook Community Centre a triple polling station  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.