Since Lewisham Council’s Director of Planning, Emma Talbot refused the application for the Bell Green Neighbourhood Area on 24th August 2022, this has sparked a debate about the ward boundaries and their construction. Interestingly, Lewisham Council has been re-warded by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England as recently as November 2020 and these new boundaries were used in the local council elections held in May 2022. These changes reduced the number of Bellingham Councillors from 3 elected members to 2 elected members and reduced the size of the ward to reflect this change. Consequentially, there was an increase to the size of neighbouring Rushey Green ward to include a small part of Catford Hill. Also, there was the necessity to place a small number of roads into Perry Vale ward. These changes have caused much of the disputed boundary issues.
Lewisham Council’s website did not contain the detailed ward maps with polling stations however, they supplied these maps reproduced below to help with a common understanding of the ‘new’ ward boundaries that were used in the last local elections held on 5th May 2022.
Bellingham Ward
Perry Vale Ward
Rushey Green Ward
Bell Green as a local area over the years has been moved into and out of administrative electoral boundaries