COUNCILLORS have voted to ask government commissioners to look again at plans to carve up the constituency that covers their borough.

The latest proposed political map for East Lancashire creates a new seat of Pendle and Clitheroe which also will include Whalley.

This has angered Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans and his Pendle Conservative colleague Andrew Stephenson.

The new proposed political map published in last month would put Clitheroe and villages in the east of the borough with Nelson and Colne an hour-and-a-half bus journey away.

The rest of Ribble Valley will acquire chunks of Preston and South Ribble to make up the numbers, but be left without an obvious administrative centre

Now Ribble Valley Council has voted to ask the Boundary Commission for England to reconsider the plans to carve up the constituency.

The commission published initial proposals last year that left the Ribble Valley constituency largely intact, minus the three wards of Billington and Langho; East Whalley, Read and Simonstone; and Whalley and Painter Wood, which were moved into a new-look Hyndburn.

But a special meeting of the council’s policy and finance committee heard the latest proposals effectively split Ribble Valley in two, leaving one half in no man’s land without an obvious administrative centre, and the other separated from Nelson and Colne by the 1,827ft Pendle Hill.

Ribble Valley Council leader Cllr Stephen Atkinson said: “These new boundaries simply do not make sense. They leave what is almost a mountain between Clitheroe and Nelson, the two main towns of the proposed Pendle and Clitheroe constituency, with an hour-and-a-half bus journey between them.

“Clitheroe is the administrative centre of Ribble Valley and the surrounding villages naturally look towards it as the economic and cultural heart of the borough.

“It is the home of Ribble Valley Council, which should remain at the centre of the parliamentary constituency.

“We believe that the constituency of Ribble Valley should reflect the borough boundaries and these proposals need a significant rethink.”

The committee decided to reject the latest proposal and ask the commission to revive its initial proposal or move the two wards of Whalley and Painter Wood, and Chatburn back into the Ribble Valley constituency and Bamber Bridge East into South Ribble.