A DISPLAY of Malvern Hills District Council's draft proposals for the first electoral review in 25 years goes on public display throughout the area from Monday.

The public consultation exercise will continue until October 5 and include the authority's suggested changes to ward boundaries and possible alterations to the number of councillors in each ward.

The district council will then have to forward its final proposals to the Local Government Commission for England by October 22.

"It's a complex subject but we've tried to make proposals as clear as possible and explain why the council is doing this," said MHDC's head of legal services Nigel Snape.

"What we're aiming for is electoral equality, as near as is practical, and the idea that each councillor should represent the same number of electors - that is that the ratio of councillors to electors in each ward is the same."

"The changes, required by law, are needed because new housing developments and other demographic influences have helped change populations in the district since the last review. The present make-up of the council was formed out of the reorganisation of Herefordshire when it became a unitary authority in 1998, adding to electoral inequality.

"Electoral equality is the key principle of democracy but because we are using parishes as building blocks to form district wards it's quite difficult to achieve. Sometimes you are not able to perhaps group the most obvious parishes together because the figures don't work out."

Upton is a case in point with the proposals including Hanley Castle in a different ward from Hanley Swan and lumping Hook ward in with Castlemorton and Welland.

In Malvern, proposals include the creation of a new ward centred around Dyson Perrins High School and the demise of the current Trinity ward and the changing of the name of the present Langland ward to Pickersleigh.

Mr Snape said: "We realise there could be emotive issues and we want to know what the public think about this."

Displays can be viewed at all MHDC offices, Malvern Town Council office in Belle Vue Terrace, Malvern Library, the Tourist Information Centre in Church Street and Safeway in Townsend Way.

In Upton, they can be seen at the library and the Tourist Information Centre.