Ashurst Wood - Governance

Governance

Ashurst Wood is a ward and a civil parish since 2000. Following the local election on 3 May 2007, there are nine councillors. The parish council meets ten times per year which can be attended by the public. In the 1870s the ecclesiastical parish of Forest Row was formed and much of Ashurst Wood was included in its governing. In 1894 the civil parish of Forest Row was formed and the village was a ward within this parish, in the administrative county of East Sussex. In 1934 the village was transferred from the Forest Row parish council to the East Grinstead Urban District Council then in East Sussex. Under the 1974 local government reorganisation, East Grinstead Urban District Council was abolished with a new parish authority East Grinstead Town Council formed within the new Mid Sussex District. Under these changes the East Grinstead parish was also moved from East to West Sussex. Ashurst Wood was then governed by East Grinstead Town Council until 2000.

Up until 1992 Ashurst Wood was split by the administrative boundary of East and West Sussex, which meant parts of the village were under the control of Forest Row Parish Council and other parts East Grinstead Town Council. A plan to transfer land on the East Sussex part over to West Sussex County Council was submitted to the Secretary of State for the Environment, and in 1993 the boundary changes came into force.

Ashurst Wood is now in the District of Mid Sussex which is mostly covered by the Mid Sussex (UK Parliament constituency). Nicholas Soames, grandson of UK Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, is its Conservative Member of Parliament. In the 2005 local elections Nicholas Soames held his seat by winning the vote with 48.0%, a 1.8% increase than the previous election. The Liberal Democrats followed with 36.1%, a 5% increase. Labour received 12.7% of the vote, down 6.3% and The United Kingdom Independence Party received 3.2% of the vote, up 0.7% on the previous election.

In 2005 a committee formed with the aim of creating an action plan to implement progress for the village. In 2006 a comprehensive questionnaire was produced and given to the villagers to ascertain what actions should be taken. 55% of the questionnaires were returned and general population data recorded by this questionnaire echoed the findings of the 2001 census. The questionnaire resulted in a document called the Ashurst Wood - Village Action Plan which was published in April 2007. The document contains time scales for targets and actions that will be taken.