JUST-in-case plans for voting in new councillors before next year's elections will be discussed by Oxford City Council tonight.

The council is among those due to hold elections next May, after they were postponed two months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At the election, voters will choose councillors to represent redrawn ward areas in the city, after the electoral boundaries were reviewed last year.

At its meeting tonight, council will consider how they cover a short ‘gap’ period between now and then where by-elections could still be held.

By-elections, to vote a single councillor into a vacant seat, cannot be held in the six-month period before full local elections are held every four years.

Ahead of next year’s elections that period would be this November to next May.

A report to council asks that if any councillors stand down unexpectedly in the short gap before then, a replacement should be voted in based on the current ward boundaries, rather than the new ones.

This gap would begin in September, as this would allow enough time for local voters to say whether or not they wanted an election to be held and for any potential candidates to come forward and campaign.

It would then end on November 7, when the six-month rule would come into play.

At the moment, no local elections of any kind are allowed, so the 'just-in-case' arrangement would only apply if the Government decided to lift current restrictions so polling could take place.

A report to the council said there was a technical difference between what it dubbed the ‘interim plan’ for elections, which it said would ‘re-create the old council area boundaries temporarily, and simply reverting to the old wards.

The new boundaries for the city’s wards were agreed by the council in February this year, after several years of public consultations with voters in the city.

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When the changes come into place in the May 2021 elections, there will still be 24 wards within Oxford, with two councillors for each ward, totalling 48 councillors overall.

The boundaries of all but three of these wards have been moved, and the names of some have been changed. North Ward, for example, becomes Walton Manor Ward.

Oxford Mail:

Council leader Susan Brown. Picture: Ed Nix

Though elections are planned for May, at Oxfordshire County Council’s meeting last week, some councillors were hesitant to describe them as definite, in case more lockdown restrictions were needed.