Littleport has been saved from being split into two!

The Local Government Boundary Commission for England has changed its mind and agreed to keep the village as one division rather than break it up.

The final recommendations for new electoral arrangements for Cambridgeshire County Council published today also confirm only 61 councillors for the county instead of 69.

The commission says that in East Cambridgeshire, they have altered their proposals in response to local views; it has amended its previous recommendation to divide Littleport between electoral divisions.

Instead, the commission’s final recommendations propose to include the parish, in its entirety, in a Littleport division.

The commission has also amended its proposals for Ely. Its previous recommendations had included part of Ely and its rural hinterland in a division with Soham and Littleport.

The commission’s final recommendations ensure that Ely is represented by two electoral divisions which match the parish boundary and therefore do not include other parts of the district as had been put forward under the previous recommendations.

For Soham, the commission’s final recommendations propose a Soham North & Isleham division alongside a Soham South & Haddenham division which includes the south of the town and parishes to its west.

A commission spokesman said that “after considering all the evidence presented to it” they felt its recommendations better reflect local community ties and identities.

The commission’s final recommendations propose that Cambridgeshire should be represented by 61 county councillors in the future: eight fewer than the current arrangement. The recommendations also propose that those councillors should represent 57 single-member electoral divisions and two two-member electoral divisions across the county.

Professor Colin Mellors, chairman of the commission, said: “We are extremely grateful to people across Cambridgeshire who took the time and effort to send us their views over several rounds of consultation. The commission considered every piece of evidence it received before finalising these recommendations.

“Across the county, we have sought to balance the views expressed to us by local people with the criteria we must apply when we are deciding on new electoral arrangements.

“As such, we believe these recommendations deliver electoral equality for voters as well as reflecting the identities of communities in Cambridgeshire.”

The proposed new arrangements must now be implemented by Parliament. A draft order – the legal document which brings into force the recommendations – will be laid in Parliament in the coming months. The draft Order provides for the new electoral arrangements to come into force at the county council elections in 2017.