Appendix 16 – Draft Recommendations for Thornton-le-Beans Parish Council
Contents
1.0 Current governance arrangements and history of the area
Current governance arrangements
2.0 Assessment of consultation responses for Thornton-le-Beans
3.0 Final assessment and draft recommendations
Annex 16A – Consultation survey
Annex 16B – Summary of consultation responses
1.0 Current governance arrangements and history of the area
Current governance arrangements
1.1 Thornton-le-Beans parish council is situated within the Hillside & Raskelf division and is part of the Thirsk and Malton parliamentary constituency.
1.2 Thornton-le-Beans parish council if formed by a group of civil parishes as follows:
|
Civil Parishes within Parish Council |
Electors (2025) |
Councillors |
|
Thornton-le-Beans civil parish |
202 |
4 |
|
Crosby civil parish |
9 |
1 |
|
Cotcliffe civil parish |
21 |
|
|
TOTALS |
232 |
5 |
History of the area
1.3 Under the Local Government Act, each parish within a group of parishes forming a parish council must return at least one councillor, and the same person cannot be elected to more than one seat in a parish council.
1.4 The legal order dated 1973 (arranged by former North Riding of Yorkshire Council) putting the current arrangements in place states that the 3 parishes of Crosby, Cotcliffe and Thornton-le-Beans shall from a group of parishes with a council, that group to be called Thornton-le-Beans, with one councillor representing Crosby and Cotcliffe and 4 representing Thornton-le-Beans.
1.5 It has been identified that Thornton-le-Beans Parish Council does not currently meet the above requirements as Crosby civil parish and Cotcliffe civil parishes collectively return a single, even though they are 2 separate civil parishes. Therefore, it was agreed that a review of the governance arrangements was needed to ensure the governance arrangements were fit for purpose and compliant in future.
1.6 Prior to the review commencing, contact was made with the parish council and the relevant division member and the identified issue and potential solutions were explored. The parish council provided a preferred solution, which formed the basis of the first stage of consultation for this review.
1.7 The preferred potential solution involved merging Crosby civil parish with Cotcliffe civil parish to form a single parish, which is grouped with Thornton-le-Beans to create a council deemed appropriate for the area, with adjustments to the councillor numbers, as follows:
|
Civil Parishes within Parish Council |
Electors (2025) |
Councillors |
|
Thornton-le-Beans civil parish |
202 |
4 |
|
New civil parish area (taking in Crosby civil parish and Cotcliffe civil parish) |
30 |
1 |
|
TOTALS |
232 |
5 |
1.8 The proposal takes existing civil parishes and their locality into consideration, maintains a level of community identity within the group, and maintains the existing council size of 5.
1.9 There has also been some confusion around the name of the parish council, with
· North Yorkshire Council records indicating the name of the council to be Thornton-le-Beans with Crosby and Cotcliffe
· the legal order 1973 stating the name of the grouped council to be simply ‘Thornton-le-Beans’, and
· the legal order 1973 is cited as ‘Cotcliffe, Crosby and Thornton-le-Beans Parish Council’
· an external website found using ‘Crosby Parish Council’
and the name of the council was included within the consultation to resolve the conflict over the proper name.
Five year electorate forecast
1.10 The 2030 electorate forecast for all parishes in the group is expected to be 242 (calculated using 2024 electorate) from 232, which is not a large increase, as the area is very rural.
2.0 Assessment of consultation responses for Thornton-le-Beans
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 |
132 |
|
Consultation responses received |
22 |
|
Response rate |
16.6 % |
2.2 Consultation letters were sent to households in all 3 parishes within the parish council area, them being directly affected by this review.
2.3 A copy of the consultation survey can be found at Annex 16A. A summary of consultation responses received can be found at Annex 16B.
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.
Governance Arrangements
2.5 Of the 22 respondents, 2 appear to be entries from someone who had difficulties completing it as entries have been left blank and are unusable in these findings. Discounting those 2 entries (20 survey responses to work with) – 18 reported that they lived in the parish council area, one within a neighbouring parish and one representing the parish council. Cllr Alyson Baker (Hillside and Raskelf division) separately advised that she supports the proposal and ‘the parishes of Cotcliffe and Crosby are very small and 1 councillor will be sufficient’.
2.6 100% of the respondents were in favour of the proposed solution regards the governance arrangements with reasons given in support all include reference to the proposal being ‘logical’ and most rational solution to the identified problem in respect of the current arrangements, whilst maintaining how those in the area recognise the communities to be arranged.
Name of the Council
2.7 In respect of the conflicting names of the parish council, the question posed in the survey was to select one of 3 options, and those were as follows:
|
Option to select for preferred name |
Number |
Percentage |
|
Thornton-le-Beans with Crosby and Cotcliffe’ (as it has become informally known)
|
12 |
60 % |
|
‘Thornton-le-Beans' (the correct name as per the Order dated 1973) |
4 |
20 % |
|
Some other name |
4 |
20 % |
|
Total |
20 |
100 % |
2.8 Of the 4 that provided an alternative name it was to state the commonly known name is in fact ‘Thornton-le-Beans with Crosby and Cotcliffe’ not Thornton-le-Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe. We accept this this could be a long-standing administrative error with the name of the parish council being unclear in many places. Adding these 4 responses with the 12 in favour of the commonly known name creates a total of 80% in favour of the commonly known name, rather than retaining the name as stated in the 1973 order as simply ‘Thornton-le-Beans’.
2.9 Those in favour of retaining a the longer and more commonly used name gave reasons, in that it would retain what the council has been commonly known for over 50 years, and also has the support of the Parish Council:
This Council has been known as "Thornton le Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe Council" for many years. At a Regular Meeting on Monday 24th November, to which all Parish residents were eligible to attend, this subject was discussed and the unanimous decision was that the Council should be called "Thornton le Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe Council" and should be retained.
2.10 Of the 4 that preferred to retain the legal order name of ‘Thornton-le-Beans’ no reasons were given.
3.0 Final assessment and draft recommendations
3.1 As all responses indicated support for the proposal set out in stage 1 consultation, it is proposed to proceed with the option consulted on to merge Crosby civil parish and Cotcliffe civil parish to create a new single civil parish area, and group that with Thornton-le-Beans to from the parish council (as is currently), to rectify the issue identified in section 1 above.
3.2 Whilst there has been some confusion around the exact name of the parish council, there is overwhelming support for the longer commonly known name over the shorter name stated in the legal order, and therefore it is proposed to formally adopt the name of ‘Thornton le Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe Parish Council’.
3.3 A map of the recommended parish council is shown below:
3.4 A list of recommendations can be viewed below:
Recommendation 1 – to amalgamate the civil parishes of Crosby and Cotcliffe to create a single civil parish named Crosby with Cotcliffe (indicated shaded blue in the map above)
Recommendation 2 – group the new Crosby with Cotcliffe civil parish with Thornton-le-Beans civil parish, and that group be called ‘Thornton-le-Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe’
Recommendation 3 – that group to have a council called Thornton-le-Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe Parish Council.
Recommendation 4 – That council to have a size of 5 (as it does currently), with representation as follows:
|
Thornton-le-Beans and Crosby with Cotcliffe Parish Council |
Electors (2025) |
Councillors |
|
Thornton-le-Beans civil parish |
202 |
4 |
|
Crosby with Cotcliffe civil parish (taking in Crosby civil parish and Cotcliffe civil parish) |
30 |
1 |
|
TOTALS |
232 |
5 |
Recommendation 5 – Changes to take effect administratively on 01 April 2027 with elections to the new arrangements be 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).
3.5 The recommendations detailed above will form the basis of the Stage 2 consultation which will commence on 19 March 2026.