Borough Council Launches Second Stage of Town Council Consultation

Published on: 7 Jan, 2026
Updated on: 7 Jan, 2026

By Martin Giles

Guildford Borough Council is continuing to propose the creation of a new council for the town of Guildford.

There are currently ten wards in Guildford that are not represented by a parish or town council.

In a statement GBC says it is making the proposal “…so that residents across central Guildford have elected parish councillors making decisions about local, parish-level services”.

In a second stage of the council’s ongoing Community Governance Review, households in the currently unparished areas will shortly receive a booklet outlining the draft proposals and asking residents to share their views.

The first consultation, held last summer, was criticised for a lack of clarity of the information provided and questions asked. Of the 1,116 responses received, 58 per cent supported the creation of a new parish council which could then rename itself a town council. GBC is now seeking views on detailed proposals for how it could be set up.

View of Guildford from Bright Hill

What the draft recommendations propose

Create a parish area called ‘Guildford’ to cover the ten wards that are currently unparished.
Form ‘Guildford Parish Council’ to serve the parish area.
Name the ten parish wards the same as the existing ten borough wards.
Elect 24 councillors to represent the ten wards that make up the parish area.
Charge a precept (a new increase to the amount of council tax paid by each household) to pay for the running of the parish council and the services it may provide.

Although the new council must initially be set up as a parish council, it could decide to call itself a ‘town council’. It could then have a ceremonial ‘Mayor of Guildford’.

Parish councils set their own precept, which pays for the running of the parish council and the services it provides. The precept for a new Guildford Parish Council is estimated to be between £60 and £100 for a Band D property for the first year. That’s about £5 to £8.34 a month.

To begin with, a new parish council would have responsibilities for things like allotments and representing the community on planning matters. Later it could negotiate with the new unitary authority, landowners and other partners to take on more responsibilities.

If created, the new parish council, GBC says, would have a strong connection to local communities, providing local services and would aim aiming to bridge any gap between residents and the new, much larger, West Surrey unitary authority. After the first parish elections, which could be held in May 2027, Guildford residents would have the same local representation as people living in all other areas of Guildford Borough.

Cllr Julia McShane

Julia McShane (Lib Dem, Westborough), leader of Guildford Borough Council said: “Parish councils can play a vital part in representing the interests of local people, improving quality of life and the local environment.

“Before making a final recommendation, we want to hear whether our residents agree with our draft proposals to create a new local parish council.”

Eligible residents can complete the survey online from today or wait for the printed brochure and questionnaire. The deadline for responses is midnight on Sunday, March 1 2026.

All the responses will be reviewed and recommendations shared with the Full Council in mid-March. Guildford Borough councillors will make the final decision on whether to set up the new parish council.

For the decision will have to be taken by the end of March if it is not to require approval by the impending West Surrey Unitary Authority, due to be elected in May.

See other articles on town councils here.

Responses to Borough Council Launches Second Stage of Town Council Consultation

David Roberts Reply

January 7, 2026 at 5:49 pm

Instead of consulting again on a toothless town council, GBC should be mounting a fight for greater resources and responsibilities for all parish councils to offset the looming democratic deficit created by the vastly larger West Surrey unitary council, whose elected members are each going to have to cover five or six current council wards.
- Kevin Rye Reply
  
  January 8, 2026 at 12:45 pm
  
  Isn’t this about the art of the possible at this stage?
  
  Wouldn’t David Roberts rather have a town council as a starter, than miss the deadline fighting for something we’re not likely to get, at this moment at least?
  - David Roberts Reply
    
    January 9, 2026 at 6:27 pm
    
    This sounds reasonable but GBC has a responsibility for the whole borough, not just the town. A token town council fails to address the looming shrinkage in democratic representation across the whole borough. It’s inexplicable why the strong Lib Dem majority on GBC are limply pretending that a town council would somehow compensate for this shocking Labour/Tory stitch-up.
    
    As Bernard Quoroll wisely points out in his letter this week, “All significant decisions affecting the town will in future be taken by the West Surrey Council… Believing otherwise is an expectation for hope to triumph over experience.”
Peter Hyde Reply

January 9, 2026 at 6:44 am

Let’s at least have a Town Council that can fight for the greater responsibilities the need for which David Roberts quite rightly identifies.
Jeremy Holt Reply

January 9, 2026 at 2:08 pm

There should be a few basic principles embedded in any town council:

1. Candidates should have no party politics;

2. Unless the percentage vote is above some fixed level, above say 50%, no candidates should be elected and the town council should be abolished.

Otherwise the new town council will be filled with the same old political hacks only intent on progressing their careers whilst debating matters over which they have no control and demanding residents pay for it.

If the majority of residents do not vote the town council has no legitimacy.
- David Roberts Reply
  
  January 15, 2026 at 6:26 pm
  
  We have an exemplary non-political parish council in West Horsley. Certainly things seemed better in local government before the political parties muscled in on it in the 1960s. But I’m sceptical about whether it’s desirable or even feasible to take party politics out of local government generally.
  
  In my experience, most so-called independent candidates are either so far to the right that no party will have them (think, for example, of the hangers-and-floggers who’ve stood for Crime & Police Commissioner) or else are eccentrics championing fringe and sometimes unhinged causes.
  
  Voting in Guildford’s last borough elections was also strongly distorted by an individual, Robin Horsley, who claimed to be non-political but who was widely accused (by me included) of building support for the Tories. He failed.
  
  Rather than force candidates to hide their political views, the answer may therefore be to favour those who belong to local parties like R4GV and GGG.