West Berks Council gears up for district, parish and town elections

West Berkshire Council Press Release - 27th February
West Berkshire Council is gearing up for district council elections with residents going to the polls in two months’ time.
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On Thursday 2 May residents will go to the polls to elect district councillors to sit on West Berkshire Council, and also to elect councillors to town and parish councils.

Preparations for the district council elections are well underway with West Berkshire Council’s Electoral Services team busy booking polling stations, arranging staff for polling stations and the count, as well as making sure everyone who wants to vote can do so.

Since the district council elections were held in 2015 there have been changes to the areas each district councillor represents. The review was conducted both to reduce the number of district councillors and to adjust ward boundaries so that each councillor represents a similar number of residents. Changes to towns and villages, and their populations, had led to disparity between how many residents councillors had been representing.

Following a review by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, there will be 24 wards across West Berkshire instead of 30 and 43 councillors instead of 52. More information about the new wards and a small number of changes to polling stations will be published in March.

Anyone wanting to stand in the elections is able to do so with a deadline of 4pm on Wednesday 3 April for completed nomination forms. A list of candidates standing for election in each ward will be published online on Thursday 4 April. More information about the nomination process for candidates can be found in West Berkshire Council’s Guide to Election Procedures.
There is still plenty of time for residents to register to vote in the May elections if they have not already done so. Residents have until Friday 12 April and they can register to vote online in just a few minutes or opt to register to vote by post. 

Residents are able to vote by post if they prefer to, or to apply for a proxy vote which allows another person to cast their vote for them. The deadline for new postal votes and changes to existing postal vote details is Monday 15th April, and the applications to vote by proxy must be submitted by Wednesday 24 April.

For more information about registering to vote visit https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. There is also more information about the elections on the West Berkshire Council website.