All council wards in Bolton are set to change their boundaries ahead of the next elections in May.
The Boundary Commission has this week published its final recommendations after a consultation.
This electoral review was carried out to ensure that the wards in Bolton are in the best possible places to help the council carry out its responsibilities effectively and the number of electors represented by each councillor is approximately the same across the borough.
The review concluded that Bolton should be represented by 60 councillors in 20 wards, the same number as there are now.
However the boundaries of all wards should change and none will stay the same.
In 2020, the electorate of Bolton was 203,512 and in 2027 it predicted to be 213,697, an increase of nine per cent.
The commission received five submissions about the number of councillors, all argued for a reduction in the number of councillors.
The commission, said: “However, they did not argue for a specific number of councillors to represent the council and did not include accompanying
evidence.
“We therefore based our final recommendations on a 60-councillor council.
“On ward boundaries we received 175 submissions during consultation on our draft recommendations.
“These included comments from four political groups, 10 councillors, three local organisations and 156 local residents.
“In particular, we received a large number of objections to our draft recommendations from the Astley Bridge community.
“We also recommended several further modifications elsewhere in the borough to strengthen boundaries in response to the evidence received.
“We have made changes to our warding proposals in the areas of Farnworth, Kearsley, Queens Park, Smithills, Bromley Cross and Bradshaw to better reflect community identities.”
Among the changes are that Kearsley ward will now include the Primrose Street area, Farnworth North ward has been extended to Green Lane and Farnworth South ward will be extended slightly along Plodder Lane before cutting south along the public footpath that runs to the west of Highfield Primary School.
Queens Park ward will be re-named as Queens Park & Central and will be extended north-east to include all electors up St Peter’s Way.
The Conservative Group and Bolton North East Conservative Association argued that the area of Top o’ th’ Brow should remain in Bradshaw ward.
They stated that residents of this area use facilities in Harwood.
The report said of this: ” Persuasive evidence provided to us in both stages of consultation indicate that Top o’ th’ Brow is considered part of Breightmet.
“We also consider that Stitch-Mi-Lane provides for a stronger and more identifiable boundary.
“We were not convinced to adopt this change.”
The commission said they were persuaded by a local resident to move the boundary between Smithills and Halliwell wards to Valletts Lane to avoid splitting the community of Cope Bank.
In Astley Bridge a draft proposal to place the area of Eagley Bank into South Turton ward was not adopted, with 107 residents arguing against it.
