A REVIEW of the number of borough councillors was paused as the body leading it overlooked a response by a council member - who has now accused one political party of ‘misrepresenting’ information.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England announced last month it had suspended its review of ward boundaries in Basingstoke and Deane due to an ‘administrative error’.

The Gazette can now reveal the review was paused due to a submission by Overton, Laverstoke and Steventon ward councillor Ian Tilbury, was omitted from the information pack, provided by local bodies and individuals, the commission took into account when looking at council size, recommending cutting the number of borough councillors from 60 to 54.

However, Cllr Tilbury also told an officer at the commission in the weeks before the review was paused that the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s Conservative group’s own submission contained ‘blatant misrepresentation of the facts’ as it called for fewer councillors and larger wards.

Cllr Tilbury points to one argument made that the council runs less services now so needs fewer councillors, but this references the outsourcing of services such as leisure which happened in the 1990s, some time before the last boundary review took place from 2005.

This week, Cllr Tilbury said: “While it is good news that the Boundary Commission has decided to review their decision to reduce the number of councillors having now accepted they failed to consider my original response, this would not have been necessary had they published all the representations made by the various political groups before making their decision.

“This would have given others the opportunity to challenge the blatant misrepresentation of the facts by the Conservatives, before the commission made a decision based on their submission rather than forcing them to re-open the consultation.”

Cllr Simon Bound, leader of the Conservative group, said: “While services like [leisure outsourcing] were being set up, at the outset there was a lot of work from the council’s side. But now they are running smoothly and the mechanisms for monitoring them are largely on the council officer side, rather than as councillors.

“There is a long list of other things that have been made in to shared services with other borough which means there is less work for us to do as councillors. We can still be effective and reduce the cost of democracy.”

Cllr Tilbury added advances in technology such as social media and smartphones make councillors unable to deal with more people due to the added weight of potential correspondence, as opposed to the Conservative submission which argued advances mean councillors can communicate with more people.

Cllr Bound added: “Social media does give you the ability to respond faster to residents and it is true it also gives residents the chance to respond faster to you. But you can process your workload far more quickly.

“I can send emails from residents to the relevant officers and then they CC me into the response so I do not have to go to the council’s offices, for example, for each query.

“And with the improvements made to how people can contact the council, they can do so more quickly.”