I’ve made the following submission to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, in response to the consultation on new County Council boundaries for Cambridgeshire.

“As one of the two district councillors representing the Sutton district ward, I am writing to lodge my objection to the proposed ‘Littleport West’ division, which includes Sutton. This proposed two-member division is large and unwieldy, combining villages with no commonality of interest, and breaching the significant boundary of the A10 at Stretham.

I believe that the whole of Sutton should be included in one single-member division, perhaps enlarging the present county division to add Witchford, with which there is some shared interest, and Wentworth. Any two-member division would be spread over such a large geographical area that Sutton’s interests would be submerged.

In any case I would urge very strongly that the whole of Sutton should remain within the same county division, and the village should in no circumstances be split between different electoral areas. Sutton has a strong sense of community identity, and needs the same county councillor.  There are no boundaries along which the village could sensibly be divided, and such a division would not be in the interests of the village. Larger conurbations such as Ely or Soham will need to be divided to achieve equality of representation, but Sutton is not of such a size and should remain united.”

Tomorrow, Monday 6 July, is the deadline for responses. You can respond online on the Commission’s web site – choose Cambridgeshire County as the consultation, and click Have your say at the top right of the next screen.