The County Borough of Caerphilly (Electoral Arrangements) Order 2026 was made on 16 October 2026 and gives legal effect to a revised electoral map for Caerphilly County Borough Council. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, Welsh Ministers accepted the recommendations of Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru in full, following the Commission’s review report dated March 2026. The central effect is straightforward. The current ward structure will not be used for the next ordinary council election in 2027. Instead, the borough will move to a new set of electoral wards and member allocations fixed by this Order.
The statutory process is set out in the recitals to the instrument. The Commission submitted its recommendations under section 36(5) of the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru etc. Act 2013. The Order states that more than six weeks then elapsed, that Welsh Ministers had regard to any representations made during that period, and that a ministerial statement was published under section 37(6) setting out the decision on each recommendation. The instrument was signed on 16 October 2026 by Siân Gwenllian, Cabinet Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning. For policy readers, the important point is that ministers did not amend the Commission’s scheme. The review outcome has been carried across into law exactly as recommended.
Commencement is divided between administrative preparation and electoral application. For purposes connected with regulation 4(1) of the Local Government Area Changes Regulations 1976, the Order comes into force on 6 November 2026. For all other purposes, it takes effect at 23:59 on the day before the ordinary day of election of councillors in 2027. That timing matters. It allows preparatory work to begin months ahead of the poll, while keeping the existing arrangements in place until the election point itself. In practice, electoral administrators can update records and plans in advance without creating uncertainty over which map governs sitting arrangements before the vote.
Article 3 contains the operative change. The electoral wards of the County Borough of Caerphilly, as they exist immediately before the 2027 ordinary election, are abolished. They are replaced by 30 electoral wards, each given an English-language name, a Welsh-language name, a defined geographic area and a specified number of councillors in the Schedule to the Order. The explanatory note quantifies the change. Caerphilly moves from 31 wards to 30, and the total number of councillors falls from 69 to 68. That is a limited but material adjustment to local representation, affecting both how communities are grouped for voting and how many members will be returned across the authority.
For electors, the direct consequence is that some ward boundaries, ward identities or member numbers will change at the 2027 poll. For parties, independent candidates and council officers, the effect is operational as well as constitutional. Candidate selection, nomination paperwork, voter communications and election planning will all need to match the new statutory map. The detailed impact will vary by place because the Schedule allocates specific areas to each new ward. Depending on where a community sits within that schedule, the change may amount to a rename, a boundary adjustment or a revised pattern of representation. The Order itself does not reopen those choices; it gives them binding legal effect.
The drafting also closes off conflict with older boundary instruments. Article 2 provides that this Order takes precedence over any incompatible provision in an earlier statutory instrument made under section 58(2) of the Local Government Act 1972 or an earlier order made under section 37(1) of the 2013 Act. For the 2027 election in Caerphilly, this is the controlling instrument. That point is easy to overlook but important in practice. Local government boundary law often sits across several layers of historic legislation. By stating that the 2026 Order overrides conflicting earlier provisions, Welsh Ministers reduce the risk of ambiguity for returning officers, council lawyers and anyone checking the legal basis of the new wards.
The explanatory material places the Order within a wider sequence of Welsh electoral legislation. The body now known as Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru has been renamed through successive reforms, most recently by the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024. The same legislative cycle also amended the 2013 Act to insert the publication, representation and timing requirements referenced in this instrument. The Order also records that the Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered and that a full regulatory impact assessment was not judged necessary. That reflects the character of the measure. It is an implementation order for electoral arrangements in one county borough, rather than a broader change to the policy framework for Welsh local government.