About the community governance review

  1. 1. About the community governance review
  2. 2. The review process
  3. 3. Implementing changes to parish councils

A CGR is a legal process that provides an opportunity to review local representation and make changes to existing parish and town councils, as well as create new ones in unparished areas (areas currently without parish or town councils).

We carried out a community governance review (CGR) of all areas of the borough between July 2025 and March 2026. On 26 March 2026, Full Council agreed final recommendations for all areas of the borough to be represented by a town or parish council.

Due to local government reorganisation, the power to implement these changes transferred to the new unitary authority and the East Surrey Shadow Authority Executive approved our plans on 14 September 2026.

The agreed recommendations

The agreed recommendations are:

  • Banstead and The Villages Council – to create a new parish in the north of the borough
  • Horley Town Council - to increase the number of town councillors from 18 to 20 and minor changes to the wards to better reflect local communities and new development
  • Redhill Town Council – to create a new parish that includes the areas of Merstham, Earlswood and Whitebushes
  • Reigate Town Council – to create a new parish that includes the areas of Woodhatch and South Park
  • Salfords & Sidlow Parish Council - no changes to the existing parish council

You can read the report detailing the final recommendations and visit an Interactive map of the agreed recommendations (XMAP)

Next steps

Legal and practical preparations are underway for the new and amended parish arrangements to be in place for 1 April 2027, which is also the day that the new East Surrey Council will take over delivering services from the county, district and borough councils in the area.

Find out more about next steps here.

Why did the CGR take place?

The decision to carry out a CGR was agreed by Full Council on 18 June 2025. We decided to carry out a CGR now because:

  • Government guidance advises that a review should be carried out every 10 to 15 years and there has been no full review in the Reigate and & Banstead area within this period. 
  • It gave local people an opportunity to consider community governance in light of local government reorganisation, which will see the county, district and borough councils in our area replaced with a single East Surrey Council from April 2027. 
  • We want to ensure there is clarity and transparency in the areas that local councils represent and that the electoral arrangements of parishes are appropriate, equal and easy to understand for the public and key stakeholders. 

Further information

 

Next The review process