If the population of a ward increases should more councillors be appointed?

Question

The population in a Ward in our Parish has increased. Should the number of councillors increase in proportion to the population or should any increase in Councillors be taken from the existing full council perhaps to a 50/50 division.

Answer 1

An ideal world would have a proportional representation across the ward but we don’t live in an ideal word.

When vacancies arise you may like to target certain areas with leaflet drops to gain interest.

Increasing the numbers on a council is more complicated and has to be done officially through government. Start with speaking to your district or county council legal team for advice

Answer 2

You may have a case for increasing the size of the council. Check your population against that of each other parish in the district and the number of councillors on their respective parish councils. If yours is significantly out of line, there's no harm in asking the question. This would be a whole council issue rather than a single ward one.

Comments

Would there be a case for re-dividing the present number  of Parish Councillors between the two wards?

---

There may be. It's up to your principal council to decide whether this is necessary or sufficiently beneficial to pursue.

Answer 3

Possibly.  Any change would have to be undertaken by an order from the Principal Authority after a governance review was conducted.  If there are several Parish or town Councils within your Principal Authority (PA) boundary, one measure that might be applied as a test is the ratio of Councillors to Electors in wards for other Parish or town Councils.   So for example if other PC & TC 's have on average 1 Cllr per 2,500 electors and you were going up from 1 Cllr per 800 electors to one cllr per 1,000 electors, the PA might conclude that there is no case for extra cllrs.