I note the draft proposals from the Boundary Commission regarding Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council and its impact on my ward of Treforest.

The proposal appears to suggest combining the Treforest ward with the Rhydyfelin wards to create a new three member ward called ‘Treforest’.

I support the creation of multi-member wards as a means of giving voters more choice and more effectively enabling political parties to introduce equality measures such as gender balance.

I think however the boundary commission needs to take into consideration the local situation. The relationship between Treforest and Rhydyfelin is like that between Manchester and Liverpool or Spain and Portugal.

This said, the local Labour Party of which I am a member has merged its Treforest and Rhydyfelin branches and a current councillor for Rhydyfelin was a previous councillor for Treforest. I think it may be more appropriate to name the combined ward ‘Taff Vale’ as a more neutral name because of its location in relation to the River Taff and the fact that the former Taff Vale railway runs through it.

Larger wards I feel is a must in order to move councils away from the parochial politics that has dogged local government in South Wales for centuries. I would like to think that the move towards larger wards could lead to local councils (community and town) covering bigger areas that could double as smaller Assembly constituencies to meet the larger membership of the Welsh Assembly recommended by the Richards Commission. This could also lead to the reduction of the number of local authorities to perhaps reflect the Assembly regional seats or the Wales Spatial Plan areas.

It may be prudent to consider whether these larger local authority areas could also double as multi-member constituencies for the Westminster parliamentary elections. Such a cohesive approach to local and national government boundaries could lead to a US-style town hall feel, where legislators and councilmen/women of the respective levels of government work together to create accountable and effective democratic units.