Community Governance – Have your say – September 2021

Cheshire East Council is proposing combining Bulkeley and Ridley Parish Council with the Peckforton Parish Meeting to form a new combined parish council. Cheshire East Council also is recommending a reduction in the number of parish councillors.

The full draft recommendations can be viewed here (see pages 69 – 71):
https://moderngov.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ecminutes/documents/s84154/Draft%20Proposals%20-%20Final%20Publication%20Version%20March%202021%20with%20220321%20amends%20V2.pdf

At the Bulkeley and Ridley Parish Council meeting held on September 14th 2021 we discussed the Councils response to the CEC recommendations. Our current position is as follows:

We oppose the merging of Peckforton with Bulkeley & Ridley PC
Bulkeley and Ridley PC is a successfully well functioning parish council. Peckforton does group naturally link with Bulkeley and Ridley. Both geographically and socially Peckforton, Beeston, Spurstow and Bunbury are more logically joined. Peckforton has it's own village hall and is more naturally linked to these other areas. Bulkeley & Ridley PC currently meet at Bickerton Village Hall, this facility provides many of the sports and social activities for the area. The majority of the primary children attend Bickerton primary school, Holy Trinity Church Bickerton is our local place of worship and our local pub (The Bickerton Poacher) is in Bickerton (but geographically on the edge of Bulkeley village). If the merging of parish councils was deemed necessary then merging with Bickerton would seem more logical.

We oppose the reduction of parish councillors from 10 to 8.
As a parish council we have been successfully maintaining our list of 10 parish councillors. As councillors are volunteers there is no financial requirement to reduce numbers and having 10 builds resilience into our governance.

If you would like to make a comment in regard to either the Parish Councils position or the CEC draft recommendations please contact the parish clerk bulkeleyandridleyparishcouncil@hotmail.co.uk. 

Alternatively you may decide to submit your comments to CEC here:
https://surveys.cheshireeast.gov.uk/s/CGReview2/