Have your say on the creation of a new parish council for Welwyn Garden City

What is a Community Governance Review?

A Community Governance Review (CGR) is a legal process that district and borough councils can follow to review parish and town council arrangements.

You can find out more about Community Governance Reviews on the gov.uk website.

Why open a Community Governance Review now?

The Government has set out plans to close Hertfordshire's 11 district and borough councils, and the county council, and replace them with new unitary councils. You can find out more about this on our Local Government Reorganisation pages.

These plans do not include making changes existing town and parish councils.

Welwyn Garden City is the only area in our borough which does not currently have a town or parish Council.

We understand that our residents and stakeholders may have views about the impact of these changes on local representation.

We ran an initial consultation from 20 October until 14 December 2025 which showed there was in interest in reviewing the arrangements for Welwyn Garden City.

In response we have opened this Community Governance Review.

What are the options the Community Governance Review is considering?

The options the Community Governance Review will consider are:

• setting up a new parish council for Welwyn Garden City (this could be a called a town council)
• setting up a Neighbourhood Area Committee for Welwyn Garden City to engage with residents
• doing nothing for now and keeping things as they are regardless of what happens with Local Government Reorganisation.