Newtown ward won’t disappear after all!

A shake-up was set to see the number of county councillors reduced from 73 to 64 with the number of electors per councilor increased to 1,616. Newtown would have gone from five to four wards.

But a war of words has broken out between bureaucrats over deadlines not being met and the Social Justice and Local Government Minister Carl Sargeant said: “The Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales is conducting a review of the electoral arrangements in each County and County Borough Council.

“Despite allocating adequate resources to complete the reviews within the timescales specified in the directions the Commission has fallen considerably behind schedule. I have over the past year re-iterated to the commission the importance of delivering to these timescales. However, it has now become clear that the Commission will be unable to meet this date in respect of a number of counties.

“In light of these issues, in particular the delays in producing reports for a number of counties I have concluded that I will not make any orders in respect of the boundary reviews for any local authorities in Wales take effect for the 2012 elections.”

Newtown County Councillor Russell George said: “I welcome the news as some of the proposals had not been thought out very well.”