Several polling station changes proposed due to community centre closures and other ‘issues’

Wrexham Council have opened a consultation on plans to rejig some polling stations in the county borough.

Polling places provide their building for the day so that electors have a convenient place to vote however ‘issues’ have arisen during recent elections.

Closure of community centres and chapel rooms are stated as some problems meaning changes are needed, however there is no detail of other ‘issues’ prompting alterations.

Election lingo is also defined to help the public respond, with no changes proposed to ‘polling districts’ at this time, which locally are the wards. However there is a wider Local Democracy and Boundary Commission (LDBC) review of electoral arrangements taking place, so they could be altered in a separate ongoing process.

Changes are proposed to some polling places, which are the building or area which polling stations are be located. For election geeks, the definition of a ‘polling station’ is given as being ‘the room or area within the polling place where voting takes place’.

Wrexham Council say, “Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, the Council has a duty to divide its area into polling districts and to designate a polling place for each district. It also has to keep these arrangements under review.”

The review is now underway and sees a handful of changes planned, with the old locations listed with changes as below:

• Erbistock village Hall > Marchwiel Village Hall No 2, Marchwiel, Wrexham
• Abenbury Community Centre > Pentre Gwyn and Tanycoed Community Centre, Abenbury Road
• Rossett Church Hall > Rossett & Burton Village Hall, Station Road, Rossett
• Marford Community centre > Gresford Methodist Church Hall, Chester Road, Gresford
• Student Centre Dodds Lane > Gwersyllt Community Primary School, Dodd`s Lane, Gwersyllt
• Student Centre Dodds Lane > Gwersyllt Community Primary School, Dodd`s Lane, Gwersyllt
• Coedpoeth Parish Hall > The Old Carnegie Library, Adj Parish Hall, Park Road
• Bersham Heritage Centre > Rhostyllen Parish Hall, Vicarage Hill, Rhostyllen
• Caia Park Council Rooms Prince Charles Road > Caia Park Community Council Offices, Prince Charles Road, Wrexham
• Rhosddu Primary School > Rhosddu Community Centre, Price’s Lane

To find the consultation documents you need to visit the YourVoiceWrexham.net website, either click the top slider or wait for it to cycle across to “Review of Polling Districts and Places”, click ‘view more detail’, then scroll to the bottom of the page (ensure you have PDF reading software installed) and then can view the information*.

The final proposals are pencilled in to go before the Council on Wednesday 18th December 2019, which depending on UK events could see the changes in place for the next election, or not.

The documents before the public include a table of electors per polling district as of the September 2019 Register.

Currently there are 100,192 potential electors according to the table with the breakdown showing the smallest polling station is Bersham Heritage Centre with just 80 electors. Bersham Heritage Centre is one proposed to change, perhaps due to the small scale of electors, to Rhostyllen Parish Hall.

The five lowest are below…
80 Bersham Heritage Centre
113 Ceiriog Centenary Hall, Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, Llangollen
120 Whitewell Parish Rooms, Whitewell, Iscoyd
129 Ceiriog Centenary Hall, Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, Llangollen
148 Lodge Community Centre, Broughton Road, Lodge

The five highest are below…
2,369 Llay Library, Llay Park Resource Centre, Market Square
2,377 The Enterprise Centre, Blast Road, Brymbo
2,443 Plas Pentwyn, Castle Road, Coedpoeth
2,871 St John’s Church Hall, Borras Road, Wrexham

Any thoughts and representations on the proposals must be received to Wrexham Council by Friday 11th October 2019 and can be posted to:
Scrutiny Team
Governance and Customer Services Department Wrexham County Borough Council
Guildhall
Wrexham
LL11 1NF

or you can email your thoughts to [email protected]

(*As usual we can’t deep link direct to the consultation due to the way the consultation website works, and looking at the provider’s site they have a nearly 2 meg background image, so this lack of useful functionality is not a surprise.)

Top pic: Our fave polling station image.