Eight Conservative councillors who voted down the creation of a ‘High Wycombe Town Council’ have backed electoral changes in Gerrards Cross despite a majority opposing the plans.

Cllrs Bill Chapple, Jaspal Chhokar, Phil Gomm, Tony Green, David Moore, Howard Mordue, Catherine Oliver and David Thompson voted to merge the Gerrards Cross Town Council east and south wards.

Two Liberal Democrat councillors, Steven Lambert and Mary Baldwin, voted against the changes during a meeting of Buckinghamshire Council’s standards and general purposes committee on Thursday.

Committee support for the merger, which will yield a single ‘Gerrards Cross South ward’, comes despite only 41 Gerrards Cross residents (44 per cent) backing the plans, versus 50 against (54 per cent), with two people saying, ‘they didn’t know’.

These are the results of a consultation of Gerrards Cross Town Council’s electorate of 6,412 voters held in March this year, in which just 1.5 per cent of people responded.

Of those who supported the plans, only 37 people gave their reasons, which included that merging wards might simplify voting and better reflect the community’s identity and interests.

The results suggested there was ‘not the weight of support to make the change’, according to Cllr Lambert.

He told the committee: “You accept the majority view. Even if the turnout is low, you still have a winner and in this case the winner of this particular contest was a no vote.

“So, we should pay attention to that and while that might be difficult for some members of that particular area who were proposing this, that is how democracy works, and we should adhere to that.”

The Lib Dem highlighted the irony of Tory councillors supporting the Gerrards Cross plans – despite a majority opposing them – while recently voting against plans to give High Wycombe its own Town Council, despite a majority of people wanting a new parish-level authority.

A consultation of Wycombe’s 55,125 saw 60 per cent support creating a town council, with 35 per cent against.

The percentages reflect the responses of 2,532 people, which represents a turnout of 4.6 per cent – more than three times that of the Gerrards Cross consultation.

The Wycombe consultation also showed that 43 per cent of respondents were prepared to pay for a new town council, while 46 per cent were not.

Cllr Lambert said: “We had a majority of respondents saying that they wanted to form a Wycombe Town Council and that was the majority, and this committee overturned that public view and decided not to form a town council.”

But Cllr Green hit back at Cllr Lambert, pointing out that community governance reviews were not referendums and were there to gauge the public’s opinions and views.

He told the committee: “As with the High Wycombe community governance review, it is quite clear from the outcome that the vast majority of residents in the unparished area were not the slightest bit interested in a change.”

The review of Gerrards Cross’s electoral arrangements and the merger of the east and south wards was requested by Gerrards Cross Town Council ‘to better reflect community identity, electoral equality and promote efficient and effective local government’.

The council will retain its 12 councillors, while an order to merge the wards will take effect on March 1, 2025, with the changes to come into force at the May 1 local elections.