Brentwood Borough Council is consulting local residents and businesses to find out how local representation can be improved in light of the Government’s Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
The Community Governance Review (CGR) will ensure that all residents and stakeholders continue to be represented effectively by looking at the community governance arrangements in the area to decide whether they are working for the residents, or if they should change. They deal with very local forms of governance, like parish-tier councils or community and neighbourhood associations.
Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) will see the abolition of Brentwood Borough Council, as well as all of the other district tier councils and Essex County Council. They will be replaced by fewer, larger authorities that combine the services that are currently delivered by the two tiers of local government.
Brentwood will merge with some of our neighbouring councils to form one large unitary council, which the Council has proposed should be with Chelmsford and Maldon.
Cllr Barry Aspinell, Council Leader, said: “Local government reorganisation means that Brentwood will be merged with other councils. We want to make sure that local voices and community identities continue to be heard and represented with these new larger and more diverse authorities.”
In Brentwood, there are currently nine parishes. These parish councils play an important role in delivering very local services to their residents and assist the Borough Council in doing so.
However, many parts of the Borough, including Brentwood and Shenfield town centres, do not have this local representation.
Cllr Dr Tim Barrett, Chair of the Housing, Health and Community Committee, added: “We know that parish and town councils already make a real difference to thousands of Brentwood residents. This is an opportunity to have more of a say and improve your local areas – and we welcome everyone’s thoughts in how best to make this a reality.”
The Council will also welcome alternative suggestions as to how the town and parish councils could be arranged to serve residents of the area most effectively, or, indeed, whether some other form of community governance such as neighbourhood area committees or forums, residents associations, etc, would better serve an area, or part of it.
People are able to give their views by completing an online survey or filling out a paper questionnaire.
The first stage consultation will take place between 17 November 2025 and 12 January 2026. The representations received during the first stage consultation will help us to form the proposal direction and recommendations for Full Council (due in March 2026).
You can complete the survey online here.
To request a paper copy of the survey, please call 01277 312500.