Parishes and towns agreed - but East Surrey will decide

By David Grantham, Tuesday 7 April 2026

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council has approved plans to create new town and parish councils, but the decision will actually be down to the future East Surrey council after it becomes a “shadow authority” in May, something Reigate & Banstead only discovered in early March.

As things stand, on 26 March councillors approved the Community Governance Review recommendations (Opens in a new window), which will create three new parish/town councils: Reigate Town Council (19 town councillors, five wards); Redhill Town Council (27 town councillors, nine wards); and Banstead & The Villages Council (27 parish councillors, ten wards).

The existing Horley Town Council will be rearranged so that there are 2o town councillors across seven wards, while Salfords & Sidlow Parish Council will stay unchanged with its 8 parish councillors and three wards.

Parish and town councils are the first tier of local government in the UK, typically running some local facilities (e.g. parks and allotments) and being a consultee (but not a decision-maker) on planning applications, as well as being civic bodies that can organise events - and arguably make a place feel more of a ‘place’ .

Reigate & Banstead was due a community governance review anyway, but there’s been an added drive to look at parish/town councils in light of the future merger of the borough with Surrey County Council, helping form the new East Surrey unitary authority.

Within Reigate & Banstead, 45 borough and 10 county councillors will eventually become just 20 East Surrey councillors, and worries about workloads and representation were mentioned by many borough councillors at the 26 March council meeting (Opens in a new window), which overwhelmingly backed the parish/town recommendations.

Some councillors did highlight a lack of detail on how the councils will actually operate, and the effect on council tax (though this has historically been small - generating about 2% more council tax in Horley, for example).

The borough council held two rounds of public consultation on the plans, including sending a leaflet to every household, and the final recommendations appear broadly in line with what most respondents said they wanted.

In particular, 81% of Reigate, Redhill and Merstham residents who responded wanted at least one town council to cover their area.

However, when (and possibly if) the changes will happen is now in doubt. In the early part of March, Reigate & Bansted received legal advice that, with effect from 10 March, only the future East Surrey can take the decision to implement the plans.

Reigate & Banstead’s chief executive, Mari Roberts-Wood told the 26 March meeting: “This news was unexpected and an unanticipated consequence of two pieces of legislation clashing that was not recognised previously by the legislators nor relevant national bodies”.

She added that while the development was “disappointing” and impacted the next steps to deliver the plans, the meeting’s focus was on getting the recommendations ready for “potential implementation”.

Cllr Mark Johnston (Lib Dem) put the position in a less favourable light, saying: “the cock-up is ours, it’s no-one else’s”.

Stating that the relevant law dated from 2008, he contrasted the position with next-door Mole Valley who had held an extraordinary meeting on 9 March to approve their proposals: “they understood the legal risk in advance and they managed that, they mitigated it”.

But leader of the council, Cllr Richard Biggs (Con), spoke in support of the work that Reigate & Banstead had done. He said that he didn’t think “with everything that the unitary authority will have to do”, they would have provided officer time for the review. He said: “That was in our gift. We've done it, and now I think we should make sure that we provide the best to the unitary going forward.”

If East Surrey does approve the new town and parish councils, elections for those bodies might still happen in May 2027, as the borough had been planning.

As for East Surrey itself, elections (Opens in a new window) take place a little over a month away, on Thursday 7 May. East Surrey will then operate as a shadow authority until stepping up to its full powers in April 2027 when Reigate & Banstead and Surrey County Council will be abolished.

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