1.0 Current governance arrangements and history of the area

Current governance arrangements

1.1 Kirby Hill and District Parish Council is situated within the Wathvale and Bishop Monkton division and is part of the Wetherby and Easingwold parliamentary constituency.

1.2 Kirby Hill and District Parish Council is formed by a group of 5 civil parishes, 3 of which have very low electorates in comparison to the other 2, as follows:

Civil Parishes within Parish Council	Electors (2025)	Councillors
Ellenthorpe civil parish	23	1
Humberton civil parish	33	1
Thornton Bridge civil parish	22	1
Milby civil parish	678	2
Kirby Hill civil parish	370	4
TOTALS	1,126	9

History of the area

1.3 Kirby Hill and District Parish Council initially contacted North Yorkshire Council in 2022 to request to reduce the number of councillors, and potentially merge 3 parishes to be represented by a single councillor. It was agreed to include the parish within the planned reviews to be undertaken in 2025-2026. Communication with the parish council was reestablished again in 2025 to revisit the request.

1.4 Under the Local Government Act, each parish within a group of parishes forming a parish council must return at least one councillor.

1.5 Prior to this review commencing, a range of options were explored that could satisfy parish council concerns that the existing arrangements are no longer fit for purpose and representation is not well aligned to the electorate of the areas. The parish council provided a preferred solution, which formed the basis of the first stage of consultation for this review.

1.6 The preferred potential solution involved merging some civil parishes within the group, to create 3 civil parishes that would form the group for the council, and with a reduction in council size from 9 to 8, as follows:

Kirby Hill and District Parish Council	Electors (2025)	Councillors
Milby civil parish	678	4
Kirby Hill civil parish	370	3
A new civil parish area (taking in Ellenthorpe civil parish, Humberton civil parish, and Thornton Bridge civil parish)	78	1
TOTALS	1126	8

Five year electorate forecast

(for relevant area(s) under review)

1.7 The 2030 electorate forecast for all parishes in the group is expected to be 1,025 (calculated using 2024 electorate), which appears to be a reduction from the current 2025 electorate, estimates were based on a peak registration year of 2024 (general election).

2.0 Assessment of consultation responses for Kirby Hill and District

2.1 The following table shows the number of households written to, with the number of consultation responses received, and response rate.

Households sent CGR consultation letter	646
Consultation responses received	28
Response rate	4.3 %

2.2 Consultation letters were sent to all households in the Kirby Hill and District Parish Council area, being those directly affected by this review.

2.3 A copy of the consultation survey can be found at Annex 7A. A summary of consultation responses received can be found at Annex 7B.

2.4 The response rate in the table above was calculated by comparing the number of consultation responses with the number of households directly consulted by means of a letter sent to all properties in the areas under review.

2.5 Of the 28 respondents, 16 (57.1%) reported that they lived in Kirby Hill and District parish council area, and one consultation response was made on behalf of the parish council. 9 respondents were from neighbouring parishes, 1 from someone who owns a business in the parish council area, and 1 representative of a community organisation in the parish council area.

2.6 The majority of respondents were in support of the proposals, as detailed in the table below:

Option	Number	Percentage
I support the potential for change	20	71.4%
I do not support the potential for change	5	17.9 %
I am unsure	3	10.7 %
Total	28	100%

2.7 Of the 16 respondents who live within the parish council area, 2 were ‘unsure’ of the proposal, 1 did not support the proposal and 13 supported the proposal. The majority of comments referred to it ‘making sense’ to realign the governance arrangements and adjust the representation to be more aligned with electorates.

2.8 Some respondents referred to planned housing developments in Kirby Hill, Boroughbridge and the surrounding areas. There is potential to consider a wider review alongside other neighbouring parishes to reflect the changing shape of the towns and villages that line the external boundary of the parish council towards the Langthorpe and Boroughbridge parishes, though that is out of scope of this specific review, it being a rearrangement of governance arrangements within the existing parish council boundaries. NYC is open to more detailed suggestions about this in future, working with all parishes involved. One respondent explained:

Residents in Kirby Hill and Langthorpe look to Boroughbridge as their Community Hub, providing all their amenities, town centre shopping, parking, doctors, dentist, etc. The creation of a Boroughbridge and District Parish Council would cement the community together and provide the area with true community democratic governance.

2.9 The majority of respondents against the proposals are not residents of the parish council (4 of the 5),and are not directly impacted by the change, though their comments are useful for future wider reviews of the parishes in that area.

2.10 One comment from a neighbouring resident suggested reducing further the councillor numbers to 3 for Milby and 2 for Kirby Hill, which would see a total council reduction to 6 (from 9). This would be a significant change for the parish council and is beyond the requested reduction. Any further reductions would need to be considered at a future review.

3.0 Final assessment and draft recommendations

3.1 The majority of responses (71.4 %) indicated support for proposals set out in consultation stage 1, it is therefore proposed to proceed with the proposal to merge 3 of the smaller civil pashes to create a single parish, and that new civil parish to remain grouped within their current parish council arrangement, but with adjusted councillor representation.

3.2 A map of the recommended change is shown below:

A map of a city AI-generated content may be incorrect.

3.3 A list of recommendations can be viewed below:

Recommendation 1 – to maintain both Milby civil parish and Kirby Hill civil parish as they are now

Recommendation 2 – to amalgamate the civil parishes of Ellenthorpe, Humberton, and Thornton Bridge to create a single civil parish (as shown shaded in blue and marked ‘TBC’ in the map above)

Recommendation 3 – to group that new [name] civil parish with Kirby Hill and Milby, that group to be called Kirby Hill and District (similarly to how they are now)

Recommendation 4 – the group to have a parish council called Kirby Hill and District parish council (as it is named now)

Recommendation 5 – that council to have a total council size of 8 (reduction of 1 from 9) with representation as follows:

Kirby Hill and District Parish Council	Electors (2025)	Councillors
Milby civil parish	678	4
Kirby Hill civil parish	370	3
New Civil Parish Name? (taking in Ellenthorpe civil parish, Humberton civil parish, and Thornton Bridge civil parish)	78	1
TOTALS	1126	8

Recommendation 6 – That these new arrangements take affect administratively on 01 April 2027 with elections to the new arrangements at the next scheduled elections in May 2027, and that changes to the electoral register required for the above take effect on the revised publication ahead of that election (planned for December 2026).

3.4 The recommendations detailed above will form the basis of the Stage 2 consultation which will commence on 19 March 2026. That consultation will also seek views on a proposed name for the newly merged parish area, for which there are 2 options given by the parish council, of ‘Humberton and District’ or ‘Lower Swale’.

Annex 7A – Consultation survey

Annex 7B – Summary of consultation responses