CRAVEN District Council could be slimmed down to 30 councillors instead of 34 under a Government boundary review.

The Local Government Commission is looking at creating electoral equality in Craven, where each councillor has the same number of electors, and at the moment there are large anomalies across the district.

If every one of Craven's 34 councillors represented the same number of people, they would have 1,230 each, but at the moment 13 wards are more than 10 per cent adrift either side of that figure.

Colin Iveson, Craven's head of democratic services, explained: 'In Skipton there are six wards returning nine members. In the South West ward there are only 863 electors - that's 30 per cent less than electoral equality.

"In the South ward, however, there are 1,824 electors - 48 per cent more than there should be. There has been a lot of new developments down there which have made the difference.'

And some of the rural wards are also above or below the 1,230 figure - Cowling has 1,609 electors and Bolton Abbey is 18 per cent down, added Mr Iveson.

The council is to meet on January 19 to discuss the review, and the first decision members will have to make is whether to stay with 34 councillors or drop to 30 - with both options needing alterations to ward boundaries to make the numbers fair.

Whatever is decided, Skipton looks set for major change to even up the town's wards, and any district council boundary changes will also affect the town council.

The council will be faced with various options, and these include Skipton dropping to eight councillors, North Craven losing one or two, and South Craven shedding one.

Coun Marcia Turner, who has chaired a working party looking into the review, said that the Government had told the council that three member wards - like Skipton East - would have to go. The commission prefers two member wards, but one member wards are acceptable.

A meeting of councillors was held on Monday, and all the views expressed there are now being worked into options to be discussed on January 19.

Coun Turner said there were any number of permutations of wards and councillor numbers which could be implemented to solve the problem.

'If we don't have our say, the Government will decide for us. We are going to try to keep wards as near as possible what they are now,' said Coun Turner.

Immediately after the January 19 meeting, the council will hold public meetings in Settle and Skipton to put its decisions to the people. Settle's meeting is on January 20 and Skipton's on January 21.

Craven's recommendations have to be with the Local Government Commission by February 8.

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