When Milton Keynes Borough Council was formed in 1974, the Urban District Councils of Bletchley, Stony Stratford, Wolverton and Newport Pagnell were disbanded but no other tier of Local Government was put in their place.

This resulted in these areas having no local Council to represent the electorate other than Milton Keynes Borough Council. Places such as Furzton and Emerson Valley have been part of the Shenley Brook End Parish Council.

To try to achieve equity, the Bletchley Parish Working Group was formed around seven years ago to try to implement a local Council tier for Bletchley, that is, another level of elected, local representation and to have at least the same status as existed in other areas of Milton Keynes.

The Group held meetings in communities throughout Bletchley and identified a clear desire for an element of influence, authority and responsibility by the residents of Bletchley to decide their own affairs apart from Milton Keynes Council. The Group after evidence from the various meetings, originally submitted that Bletchley should have Parish Councils based on established areas of Fenny Stratford, Water Eaton, Simpson and the Denbigh, Far Bletchley and Old Bletchley areas of west Bletchley to the west of the West Coast railway line. It also asked unsuccessfullly for Milton Keynes Council to conduct a survey to confirm these boundaries. This accorded with an official government policy favouring relatively small parishes

Whilst these efforts were being made, Milton Keynes Council agreed to set up elected, interim bodies as 'Neighbourhood Councils' but decided that this should consist of a council for Simpson, and two councils for Bletchley to the West and East of the West Coast railway line respectively. However, West Bletchley was divided into three wards corresponding to Denbigh, Far Bletchley and Old Bletchley.

In June 1997, elections took place and the bodies held their first meeting in that month. The West Bletchley Neighbourhood Council found that the amount of business to be transacted could not be achieved by one full Council meeting. Originally Five Committees were created to deal with the issues - Economic Development, Environment; Finance and General Purposes; Planning and Traffic and Publicity and Communications. Subsequently, the first has been changed to the Regeneration and Development Committee and a sixth has been created - the Leisure and Education Committee.

Around this time a Parliamentary Act was introduced which allowed a new parish council be instituted in three different ways.

1 As a result of a petition by 10% of the electors in a designated area which a district council is required to pass on to the Secretary of State.

2 As previously, by recommendations of the Local Government Commission following a periodic review.

3 As the result of submissions from the relevant local authorithy (e.g. MKC).

On this basis a proposal for just two parish councils for Bletchley as described above formed part of a City wide submission sent to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Local Government and the Regions in November 1999. The majority of the Parish Working Group opted to support that submission.

Recently, the Secretary of State has approved two Parish Councils for Bletchley whose external boundaries are not dissimilar to those of the two current Neighbourhood Councils. However, the Local Government Commission for England and Wales has been considering the internal Ward boundaries for the whole of Milton Keynes including those of the new Parish Councils as well as those of Milton Keynes Council. The two Neighbourhood Councils also made a submission.

New proposals for warding have currently been made with three Milton Keynes Councils members each for West Bletchley and Denbigh. This will increase the number of Milton Keynes councillors from 5 to 6 at the expense of taking Central Bletchley into one ward. It increases the number of Parish Council wards to 10 from 3 for the Neighbourhood Council and the number of councillors will also increase. It will be seen that one Milton Keynes Council ward is split between two Parish Councils and Old Bletchley is arbitrarily split between two wards. These wards are made up as in the following list. The candidates
 
 

MILTON KEYNES COUNCIL WARDS	EQUIVALENT PARISH COUNCIL WARDS	Members	Candidates            2001	Votes
West Bletchley  (3 Members)	Castles (Far Bletchley)	3	R.Beacham* N.Long  (Labour) C.Turbull(Labour)	Uncontested
	Saints(Old Bletchley)	2	V.Belcher(Labour) A.Laing* G.McKenzie(Labour) M.Pert	338 294 326 305
	Racecourses (Far Bletchley)	2	K.Sidebottom* E.Thomas (Labour)	Uncontested
	Fairways ( or Windmill Hill) (Far Bletchley)	3	B.Myrie(Labour) K Sisson* P.Vasiliou(Labour)	Uncontested
	Rivers(Far Bletchley)	4	D.Anscomb* R.Bristow(Labour) S.Long(Labour) J.Phillips(Labour)	Uncontested
	Poets (Old Bletchley)	2	P.Hughes* A.Mabbott (Labour?) R.Padley(Liberal-Democrat?)*	563 199 547
Denbigh  (3 Members)	Denbigh North West (Denbigh)	3	E.Campbell(Labour) M.Legg(Labour) C.Lund(Labour?)	Uncontested
	Denbigh West (Denbigh)	2	G.Conchie(Labour) W.Harnett L.Rodriguez(Labour)	375 276 322
	Denbigh North East (Denbigh)	4	J. Armitage P.Grantham* A.Vaidyanathan(Labour)* E.Wales(Labour) E.Wales(Labour)	644 602 653 699 686
	Church Green (Old Bletchley)	2	S.Burke(Liberal-Democrat)* M.Rodriguez(Labour?) K.Woodward*	454 117 537
	Central Bletchley (Part of Bletchley & Fenny  Stratford Parish Council)

* Indicates existing Neighbourhood Councillor.

Note that there were a large number of blank ballot papers caused no boubt by lack of information about the parish council elections. This was compounded by the use of the same ballot box as the General Election. The papers had been sorted before the count and, therefore out of site of candidates. Mr Rodriguez standing in Church Green Ward had the unusual distinction of obtaining fewer votes than the number of blank papers (122). (i.e. Came fourth in a three man race!)

The timetable for the transition from Neighbourhood Councils to full Parish Council status has been set out by Milton Keynes Council.  Although it may be too late for the current review, representations can also be made to

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