Parish Councils in The Valley of the Racehorse

The Valley of the Racecourse is covered by three parish councils (click on the parish name below for more information):

• Great Shefford (including East Shefford and Shefford Woodlands);
• East Garston (including Poughley);
• Lambourn (including Upper Lambourn, Eastbury and Lambourn Woodlands).

Parish Council meetings

Parish council meetings generally take place once a month (sometimes not in August) and members of the public are welcome to attend. Agendas are published in advance, and the minutes published afterwards, on the parish websites.

Please click here for more information about the role and responsibilities of parish councils.

In addition, parish councils generally have an annual village meeting which is an opportunity to review the main events of the last twelve months, provide a financial summary and invite guest speakers. In East Garston and Great Shefford, these meetings took place in April: Lambourn’s will take place on Wednesday 9 May. Click on the links to read Penny Post’s reports of these meetings: the link to Lambourn’s is currently to the event post but this will be replaced by a report of this meeting as well as soon as possible thereafter.

As well as the monthly and annual meetings, councils may convene extraordinary meetings at other times, on their own or in conjunction with other local bodies or groups, if there is a matter of particular importance to be discussed.

Lambourn’s proposed neighbourhood development plan

The main item on the agenda for the Lambourn Annual Meeting on Wednesday 9 May is the possibility of the parish adopting a neighbourhood development plan. Local residents are urged to attend the event at which more information about this will provided. Thereafter, it’s expected that further meetings on this subject may be called in order to ensure that as many views as possible are taken into account before reaching a decision.

For information about neighbourhood development plans, please click here.

District Council

All three parishes are in West Berkshire and, currently, in the Lambourn Ward for the purposes of district-council representation.

From 2019 these arrangements will be changing due to ward boundary reorganisations and reductions in the number of district councillors. East Garston and Great Shefford will henceforth be part of the Downlands Ward (reaching to Farnborough and Beedon with a population of 2,989) and the Lambourn Ward will include Upper Lambourn, Eastbury and Lambourn Woodlands (population 3,225).

Both Downlands Ward and Lambourn Ward will have one district councillor each. Click here for more on these changes.