The District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2009

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

The District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) Order 1984 (the 1984 Order) makes provision for the grouping together of wards into electoral areas. The Commissioner determines how the wards should be grouped and makes recommendations in that regard to the Secretary of State. Schedule 2 to the 1984 Order governs the procedure that must be followed by the Commissioner in making those recommendations.

This Order amends the publication requirements contained in Schedule 2 so the Commissioner is no longer required both to publish in locally circulating newspapers the provisional recommendations and specify where and when those recommendations may be inspected. Instead the Commissioner is given a choice. She or he may publish the provisional recommendations themselves or may state where and when they may be inspected or both. It also increases from one month to eight weeks the amount of time within which representations made in respect of the recommendations must be received.

It also clarifies that, where the number and boundaries of councils are due to change, the council of the district that may object to the provisional recommendations and thus compel a local inquiry is the council of the district which will in whole or in part be incorporated by or incorporate the successor districts.