About the community governance review

We carried out a community governance review (CGR) of all areas of the borough between July 2025 and March 2026. This included two rounds of public consultation.

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).

On 26 March 2026, Full Council agreed final recommendations for all areas of the borough to be represented by a town or parish council.

The agreed recommendations

The agreed recommendations, put forward by the cross-party working group, 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
• Salfords & Sidlow Parish Council - no changes to the existing parish council

You can read the report detailing the final recommendations here.

Local involvement

Through two rounds of public consultation local people were invited to consider whether current parish and town councils remained fit for purpose and whether people living elsewhere in the borough might be better represented in the future with similar arrangements.

Suggestions received during the first stage consultation helped to inform the draft recommendations that were the subject of the second stage.

The agreed recommendations include several changes made following the second round of consultation, for example:

• no expansion of Salfords & Sidlow Parish Council, following strong community opposition
• revision of ward names and councillor numbers for the new Banstead & The Villages Council
• two separate town councils for Redhill and Reigate after consultation showed strong support for town councils but mixed views on combining them.

For more detail, see the report to Full Council

Next steps

Due to local government reorganisation, the power to implement these changes will now rest with our successor authority. We will prepare a draft legal Order and support the new East Surrey Council with everything they need.

Find out more about next steps here.

Why carry out a CGR now?

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

• Find out more about the community governance review process and parish and town councils
• Community Governance Review stage 1 consultation
• Community Governance Review stage 2 consultation
• Community governance review public notice (PDF)
• Email cgr@reigate-banstead.gov.uk