LAUNCESTON Town Council has agreed with the Local Government Boundary Commission for England’s suggestion that the number of Cornwall Councillors should reduce from 123 to 87.

The commission is carrying out an electoral review of Cornwall Council, it said the aim of which is to recommend ward boundaries that mean each councillor represents approximately the same number of voters.

In March Cornwall Council submitted its final submission for an overall council size of 99 councillors to the commission, but in May the LGBCE released a statement proposing that Cornwall Council should have 87 councillors in future.

The town council was asked to consider if it felt 87 is the ‘right’ number of councillors at its meeting on Tuesday, July 18.

Cllr Rob Tremain said: “Eighty seven for the whole of Cornwall doesn’t seem a lot but it should work. If we all work together — town, parish and Cornwall councillors it could work.”

Cllr John Harris said the town’s Cornwall councillors are ‘rather busy’, adding: “If it goes down to 87 I think they could do the job but I think to pick up the slack they need to rely more on us and give us more things to be responsible for.

“We are sat here saying ‘come on, we are here, use us to our potential’, but they don’t use us to our potential.”

Cllr Paul O’Brien explained that in December a Cornwall Association of Local Councils (CALC) meeting felt a number between 85 and 90 was ‘appropriate’, and that after taking into consideration the size of some more rural parts of the county, amended this to 83 to 95.

He added: “There is a large element of ‘suck it and see’. There’s no hard and fast algorithm you could use to say it should be this number of that number. I personally favour 87, I think that’s realistic, I don think it would put too great a burden on individual members of Cornwall Council.”

The commission is seeking the other people’s views before it moves to the next stage of the review.

This consultation is open to any organisation, local group or person who is interested in how Cornwall is led over the coming years.

Send your responses to: Email: [email protected]; Consultation portal: consultation.lgbce.org.uk (where you can directly type your submission or upload documents); Post: Review Officer (Cornwall), Local Government Boundary Commission for England, 14th floor, Millbank Tower, London, SW1P 4QP.

For more information visit www.lgbce.org.uk. This consultation closes at midnight on August 7.