Haydon Wick Parish Council’s plans to simplify part of its boundary has been rejected by a cross party group at Swindon Council.

The council is conducting a review of parish boundaries and Haydon Wick Parish Council proposed to change some of its boundaries to coincide with the new borough wards of Haydon Wick and Priory Vale. Most of these borough wards are in Haydon Wick parish, however, there are 940 homes in the Haydon Wick ward, plus 320 homes in the Priory Vale ward, which are either in non-parished areas or in the neighbouring Blunsdon parish. The parish council consulted all the affected homes and 134 responded, of which 94 were in favour.

Richard Hailstone, the chairman of Haydon Wick Parish Council, said there had been confusion following the recent shake-up of borough wards, with people thinking they were in the parish just because they were in one of these wards.

However, the council’s corporate governance review working group said the level of support in the council’s consultation was not a large proportion of those living in the community and there was not enough evidence to justify a change.

Coun Hailstone said: “I’m surprised at the decision. The parish council doesn’t agree with it and we will be trying to convince the panel that it would be a good thing to change the boundaries.

“We’re only able to provide facilities for people who live in the parish so we thought it would make things more easily understood if the parish boundaries and the ward boundaries are the same.”

The review working group said the bid would be reviewed before the draft plan is release this month.