Gateshead Council have started of an eight-week public consultation inviting proposals on a new number of councillors for Gateshead Borough Council.
Our consultation will close on 10 July 2023.
Gateshead Council currently has 66 councillors, with three elected from each of electoral ward. We will carefully consider all views received during this phase of consultation, and plan to publish proposals for the new council size in August 2023. Public consultation on warding arrangements is scheduled to take place between August and October 2023. There will then be a consultation on our draft ward proposals between January and March 2024.
Following the Commission’s review, long-term arrangements will apply from local elections in 2026.
If you represent a local organisation or community group in Gateshead, please pass this message on to your members or anyone who you think might be interested in the review. You can share the message by email or through social media by using the buttons at the bottom right of the page.
What is an electoral review?
Our electoral review will recommend new electoral arrangements for Gateshead. We will propose:
- the total number of councillors elected to the council in the future;
- the number of wards;
- the number of councillors representing each ward;
- ward boundaries; and
- the names of wards.
How to get involved
This is a public consultation and we welcome views from individuals and organisations across Gateshead on how many councillors they think should represent Gateshead.
We will treat all submissions equally, and judge each case on its merits and against the legal criteria.
The Borough currently elects 66 councillors. In deciding the new number of councillors, we will consider:
• The way the Council is led, makes decisions, and operates.
• The way the Council’s work is scrutinised by councillors in order to ensure that the Council is properly run and publicly accountable.
• The Council’s interaction with, and representation, on other local and regional bodies
If you wish to put forward a view, we would also urge you to ensure that evidence supports your submission.
This means that proposals made to us must demonstrate how they meet the criteria. We will take decisions based on the strength of the argument and not merely on assertion. For example, giving details of how the council does and could carry out its functions to support a proposal will carry greater weight than a proposal that simply asserts support for a certain number of councillors.
There is more advice on our website about how you can get involved in the consultation.
Our website features technical guidance that explains the process and our policies, as well as guidance on how to take part in each part of the process.
We have also set up a webpage dedicated to the review of Gateshead, where you can find all the relevant information.
You can also access interactive maps of the current ward boundaries across Gateshead on our page for Gateshead. The page also allows you to comment and upload documents directly to the site.
