The village where too few want to stand for office wins approval to reduce to seven size of parish council

An East Cambs village has won the right to reduce its parish council from nine members to seven because they can’t find enough people willing to be councillors.

Little Thetford – three miles south of Ely- has a population of around 700 but the parish council said they were finding it increasingly hard to find new members.

East Cambs District Council has now agreed it can reduce to seven its parish council size from next May.

“The council expanded from seven to nine councillors where there was a major project under way to purchase a develop a recreation field,” the parish council explained in a letter to East Cambs.

“This project has been completed for some years now and the workload of the council has reduced as a consequence.”

The parish said the last two elections have resulted in insufficient candidates to all all the vacancies.

“It has been necessary to go through the co-option process,” the council said.

Since the last election in 2011, the parish council has worked with just seven members as they fpound it impossible to fill all the vacancies.

“A membership of seven councillors would be more in keeping with the size of the village and will be a more practical size going forward,” said the council.

Villagers have time to object to the proposals before East Cambs Council approves the final order in October.