This meeting of the General Purposes Committee was scheduled to discuss a range of matters, including a proposed review of the community governance arrangements in Horsforth, and the appointment of Councillors to positions on outside bodies.

Proposed Community Governance Review of Horsforth Town Council

The Committee was asked to consider a request from Horsforth Town Council for a Community Governance Review. These reviews are used to consider a range of issues relating to parish arrangements under The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.

A Community Governance Review is the process used to consider parish arrangements. It is a review of the whole or part of the district area to consider one or more of the following:  creating, merging, altering or abolishing parishes;  the naming of parishes and the style of new parishes;  the electoral arrangements for parishes (the ordinary year of election; council size; the number of councillors to be elected to the council, and parish warding), and  grouping parishes under a common parish council or de-grouping parishes.

In this case, Horsforth Town Council requested that the review consider their proposal to create a new ward, to be known as Broadgate and Drury Fields, from the existing Broadfields and Hall Park wards. They proposed that this new ward elect two councillors, reducing the number of councillors in each of the existing Broadfields and Hall Park wards from five to four.

The Town Council requested this review because changes to the polling districts in the area mean that the existing polling station at the Broadfields Sheltered Housing Complex would need to be a dual layout. The Town Clerk, Becky Crabtree explained that:

This means that, with the current Town Council Ward configuration, any election involving both the Town Council Broadgate and Hall Park Wards e.g. the next all-out elections in 2027, would have to have different coloured ballot papers so that those ballots returned at Broadfields APH could be allocated to the correct Town Council Wards.

The report explained that if the Committee did not approve the review, the Town Council could force a review by submitting a petition signed by a prescribed percentage of the electorate.

Amendments to Elected Member Appointments to Outside Bodies

The Committee was asked to consider three issues relating to the appointment of Councillors to outside bodies.

It was asked to determine how to proceed with the appointment of a Councillor to the Robert Salter Charity in Pudsey. The Committee had previously appointed three Councillors to the board, Councillors A McCluskey, D Seary and S Seary, but since then Councillor McCluskey had resigned, and the charity had amended their governing documents to reduce the number of Leeds City Councillors on their board from three to one. The Committee was asked to decide whether the appointment should be made by the General Purposes Committee, or whether it should be delegated to the Outer West Community Committee.

It was also asked to note that Environmental Protection UK, an organisation to which the Committee had previously appointed Councillors, had ceased to operate.

Finally, it was asked to determine who to appoint to the Leeds Playhouse Theatre Board after the Liberal Democrat Group requested that Councillor B Gettings of the Local Independent Party be appointed to their allocated seat on the board. Councillor J Dowson and Councillor C Campbell had previously been appointed to the two seats on the board.