Agenda item

All local authorities are required to conduct a review of its polling districts and polling places between 1 October 2023 and 31 January 2025. A polling district is a geographical area created by the sub-division of a UK Parliamentary constituency for the purposes of a UK Parliamentary election. A polling place is the building or area in which polling stations will be selected by the (A)RO). 

It is essential that Haringey Council completes this ‘polling scheme’ review work by January 2024 in preparation for a general election which could be called at any time as well as in time for all the preparations for the May 2024 GLA Mayoral and Assembly Elections. 

Mark Stevens, Assistant Director Direct Services & Project Sponsor, introduced the report as set out in the agenda pack at pages 1 - 111.

By way of introduction, the Committee was advised that the polling district and polling place review had been carried out in a way which built upon the work of the past two recent reviews, set out as follows.

·         In 2021, the ward boundary review undertaken by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) and the subsequent Haringey Council review of its polling districts and places to reflect this.

·         A further review was carried out in October 2022 to build on feedback from the May 2022 elections and population changes.  This was approved by Corporate Committee in February 2023.

The Committee noted that this report sets out the recommendations for each polling district and the associated polling place, including where feedback was received and any changes that were made as a result of the consultation phase.

Four proposals were made for changes to the polling scheme approved in February 2023:

1.    The boundary between CEN-A and CEN-B in the Crouch End ward was moved to the north to make walking distances to the polling stations in those polling districts more even.

2.    The boundary between WHL-A and WHL-B in the White Hart Lane ward was moved to the south to make walking distances to the polling places in those polling districts more even.

3.    The boundary between HRN-A and HRN-D moved to put the whole of Nightingale Lane in HRN-D

4.    The boundary between STG-A and STG-B moved to allocate the electors in Chettle Court to the polling place Hornsey Vale Community Centre

During the discussion of this agenda item, the Committee queried the size of polling district STG-A and whether it would be better for a section of polling district STG-B to be within the boundaries of polling district STG-A.

The Committee was advised that the electorate size was used as a factor, along with the location of buildings that were suitable to be used as polling places to determine the size and boundaries of the polling district.

The proposals had been developed on the Civica Maps system which used Electoral Register data on the electorate size. Proposals were developed in line with the Electoral Commission Guidance for the size of electorate allocated to a polling station. It was confirmed that the STG-A and STG-B electorates met those requirements.

RESOLVED

1. To approve the polling scheme describing the polling districts and the polling places for the London Borough of Haringey as set out in Appendix 1.

2. To grant the (Acting) Returning Officer ((A)RO) and the Deputy (Acting) Returning Officers delegated authority to amend the polling scheme.  This would be where the names of buildings change and for specific elections, where strictly necessary, this could include changing polling places (in the event an election was called and a building was not available, for example).

3. To delegate to the Electoral Registration Officer (“ERO”) the authority to approve corrections of any minor errors in allocating properties to polling districts on transferring the maps in Appendix 1 into the electoral registration software.