Fri, September 10 2010
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Tiers of Government

"Keighley and Ilkley" is a concise description of our constituency for the Westminster Parliament, but that is also part of the 'Yorkshire and Humberside' constituency for the European Parliament, contains 6 Wards of the City of Bradford Metropolitan Disrtrict Council and includes 3 Town and Parish councils within its boundaries.

Europe

As stated above, our area is one part of the constituency called, 'Yorkshire and Humberside' that elects 6 MEPs every 5 years using a form of proportional representation.  Each voter casts a single vote for a Party, then the proportions for each Party are used to select the appropriate number of candidates from lists produced by each Party that is standing.

Using that process, Diana Wallis was elected from the Liberal Democrat lists in both 2004 and 2009.

The House of Commons

'Keighley' is a single constituency electing one MP to the Westminster parliament.  It includes not only Keighley town, but also Ilkley and Addingham in the Wharfe valley, plus a number of villages and rural areas around the town.

Our candidate when the next General Election is called will be Nader Fekri who stood last time as well.

The City Council

The parliamentary constituency is split into 6 Council Wards for the Metroplitan District Council: Keighley East; Keighley South; Keighley West; Keighley Central; Worth Valley; and Ilkley (which includes Addingham and also Silsden).

Each ward elects 3 City Councillors, who stand for 4 years. In 3 years out of 4, there is an election for one of the 3.

Town and Parish Councils

Elections to these bodies happen in the 4th year, when there is no election to the City Council.

There are several of these local Councils within 'Keighley and Ilkley' of which Keighley Town Council is the largest.

Keighley Town Council is one of the larger Councils in this tier (not just locally), electing 30 Councillors from 15 wards.  The situation is more complicated than it seems: different wards elect either 1, 2, or 3 Councillors.  The full story can be found on the Town Council's own website*.

Judith Brooksbank is currently the only Keighley Town Councillor who was elected under the Liberal Democrat banner.  Most of the others stood as 'Independents' although several of them admit to their Party membership when standing at elections for other tiers of government.

Parish Councils in the Bradford Metropolitan District are listed on a page on the City Council's website.*

Within Keighley and Ilkley, there are (with the number of Councillors in brackets): Addingham (9 plus 3 vacancies); Haworth, Cross Roads & Stanbury (11 plus 1 vacancy in Cross Roads); Ilkley (14 plus 1 vacancy in Ilkley South); Oxenhope (8); Silsden (11 plus 1 vacancy in Silsden Inner); and Steeton With Eastburn (11).

Details for all of these can be found by following links on the CBMDC web page.*

Site accessibility policy

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We aim at the highest possible accessibility standards - WCAG 1.0, AAA and WCAG 2.0, level 3 (with valid HTML).  Unfortunately, that's hard to prove.  The checker linked above, for instance, fails almost every page on the site, but when I follow up the "faults", so far, they have all turned out to be warnings about issues that have been taken into account.  Please feel free to check for yourself, then if you find an exception, please

In accord with our aim of accessibility, it is site policy not to specify font families or point sizes for our pages.  You can choose the size and typeface you see: set the 'default font' in your own browser.  (Roger Beaumont has published some instructions about how to set your default font.)

Volunteers required.  We use the automated checking tools above to try to make this Website accessible but need help from someone who has a real sight disability to give us feedback about practical use with a screen-reader - especially about problems.  If you can help, we'd be very glad to hear from you.

The REAL alternative

"The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a free, fair and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."
Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution, first sentence.

"Hope not hate"

This Website is hosted ("printed") by Roger Beaumont, 174 Skipton Road, Keighley.
It is published and promoted by Judith Brooksbank on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, 198 Thwaites Brow Road, Keighley, BD21 4SW
All information and opinions on this site are provided in good faith, but we are fallible - no liability is accepted except that required by British Electoral Law.