Southampton is set to gain a new ward in May after a Parliamentary body found that the city has ‘high levels of electoral inequality’.
The new ward, in the heart of the city will be named Banister and Polygon.
It comes following a boundary review carried out by The Local Government Boundary Commision (LGBC).
It is the LGBC’s job to carry out electoral reviews of local authorities across the country to make sure electorates are fairly represented.
This has only happened once in Southampton’s unitary authority history – and that was over 20 years ago, at the turn of the millennium, when the Bevois ward was created.
Each of the city’s 16 wards has three councillors, yet population sizes across the city vary.
This means that a Bargate councillor is representing 4,500 people whereas a Sholing councillor is only representing about 2,800.
The boundary change will level out the ward populations to give residents more equal representation.
The LGBC’s findings show that ‘two wards are more than ten per cent away from the average number of electors per ward’ and ‘one ward is more than 20 per cent away from the average’.
The creation of the new Banister and Polygon ward will result in ‘no wards being more than ten per cent away from the average number of electors per ward’ and ‘each councillor representing an average of 3,594 electors’.
Banister and Polygon will be made up of the northern part of Bargate, the western part of Bevois and the eastern part of Freemantle.
Residents of the new ward will see no changes to road signs, bus stops, or any council services. The change is purely political.
The ward will of course require three new councillors, bringing the total number of city councillors up to 51.
Currently, all nine councillors from the three affected wards are Labour – and this has been the case since 2016.
Because of the geographical reshuffle, this May, the local elections won’t see just one third of councillors re-stand, but all of them.
The current political makeup of the council is Labour: 27, Conservative: 20 – and Liberal Democrats: One.
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