A Community Governance Review (CGR) allows us to review the electoral arrangements for all or part of the North Devon district.

A review of all the North Devon District Parishes will be taking place after the Devon County Council elections in May 2025. The first stage will be an information gathering process with Parish Councils so they may consider their current arrangements. This will take place after the Parish Forum in November. Once that is complete a Terms of Reference will be drafted and approved by Full Council. This will be published and will include the scope of the review, a timetable and any proposals made during the information gathering stage. That will be begin a period of full consultation.

Keep up to date with the latest news on the Community Governance Review and election vacancies by subscribing to changes on this page.

Register for updates

You will need to provide your email address and select 'Election information' from the available options.

What can a Community Governance Review do?

A Community Governance Review can make a number of changes to parish councils when there is clear evidence to do so:

• Creating, merging, altering or abolishing parishes;
• Change electoral arrangements for parishes including the ordinary year of an election, number of parish councillors and changes to parish wards;
• Convert a parish council to a parish meeting;
• Change the name or the style of a new parish/town council or parish meeting; and
• Group parishes together under a common parish.

The main things for us to consider when deciding whether to make changes are:

• impacts on community engagement
• cohesiveness of communities
• local democracy
• delivery of local services

What can’t a Community Governance Review do?

A Community Governance Review cannot:

• Change the number of district or county councillors;
• Change a district or county council ward boundary;
• Change the amount of money that a parish council raises through your council tax (known as ‘precept’);
• Change individual parish councillors; 
• Create a unitary authority.

Parish Councils

Parish councils tend to look after local facilities like village halls, churchyards and allotments. They will also comment on planning applications affecting the parish.

All parish councils must hold an annual public meeting where residents can question them.

You can find details on parish councils and parish councillors on the parish council page on this website.

Parish meetings

Smaller parishes have a parish meeting instead of a council. A parish meeting is a legally recognised form of local government for very small parishes.

A parish meeting elects a chairman and a clerk. They are legally responsible for all decisions by the parish meeting.

Putting together a Submission

We have produced two templates to help you detail what you should include in your request if you are submitting changes to the number of councillors or changes to boundaries or the grouping or creation of a council. You do not have to use them but it would be helpful to follow the principles so that all of the information required can be included.

We have also produced a different style of template that you may prefer to use.

Submissions should be treated as an opportunity to focus on the future needs of the council and not simply describe the current arrangements. Submissions should also demonstrate that alternative council sizes have been considered in drawing up the proposal and why you have discounted them.

It is not recommended that responses be unduly long; as a guide, it is anticipated that a 15 to 20-page document using this template should suffice. Individual section length may vary depending on the issues to be explained. Where internal documents are referred to URLs should be provided, rather than the document itself. It is also recommended that a table is included that highlights the key paragraphs for our attention.

‘Good’ submissions, i.e. those that are considered to be most robust and persuasive, combine the following key success components (as set out in the guidance that accompanies this template):

• Clarity on objectives

• A straightforward and evidence-led style

• An understanding of local place and communities

• An understanding of councillors’ roles and responsibilities

Current Parish/Town Council ratios

We have created a spreadsheet of the current councillor/elector ratios and also included useful information regarding whether previous elections have been contested or not.