THE Malvern Hills Trust - formerly the Conservators - has been given the green light from central government to go ahead with a scheme to reform its governing structure.

The body, which manages the Malvern Hills and surrounding commons, has been looking for the past few years at ways of bringing its governance up to date.

And last month, board members, staff and the trust's solicitors met representatives of the Charity Commission and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to find out their views.

"The meeting was very positive. We talked through all the proposals and options that we have been discussion, and the outcome is now that we have a green light from DCMS, as well as from the Charity Commission, to proceed with a scheme," says a report from the trust's working party.

The report says the priority now is to finalise the details of its proposals - with the major issues still to be decided including how many members the new board should have.

At the moment, the board has 29 members, eleven elected directly by residents of parishes and wards that pay the precept and the rest nominated by local authorities and the Church Commissioners. But the reforms aim at bringing the total number down to between nine and 14.

The report is now recommending that whatever the size of the new board, there should be a 50-50 split between elected and appointed members.

And its also says that the areas in which voters can elect representatives should be equalised: at the moment, Mathon, which has 241 registered votes, elects one member, as does Malvern Link, with nearly 5,000 voters.

They recommend consolidating the parishes and wards, and their report offers six different options, with between four and eight electoral areas.

And they also recommend that the board creates an Independent Selection Panel for non-elected members, taking over that duty from the local authorities and Church Commissioners.

The working party's report is due to be debated at a meeting of the trust's working party on Thursday.