A PUBLIC consultation is being carried out to decide the future of Warrington’s smallest parish council – Cuerdley.
As revealed by warrington-worldwide in February, three of the five seats on the council have been vacant for almost a year, making it difficult for the parish to carry out its statutory duties.
Now the borough council is reviewing governance arrangements at Cuerdley.
Residents, parish councillors and others with interests in the Cuerdley area are being invited to submit their views in writing to the council before
5pm on Friday, May 31, to assist in the review.
They are being asked whether any changes should be made to the existing governance arrangements, if the parish council should be grouped together with the neighbouring parish of Penketh and whether any alternative form of community governance should be created.
One possibility is that Cuerdley Parish Council should be abolished.
It has only been able to continue functioning since last May by drafting in borough councillors from the Penketh and Cuerdley ward to serve as parish councillors.
Cuerdley has an electorate of just 93 people living in 49 households and the parish council’s only asset is said to be a notice board. But its largest building is the giant Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station.
Cuerdley Parish Council was established in the Sixties when the local population was about 200. The parish straddles the Mersey between Warrington and Widnes and there were two polling station for the first-ever election, with ballot boxes from one being taken on a 25-mile round trip to be counted in the kitchen of a local council house!
