THREE council seats could be axed from West Somerset Council in a reshuffle of ward boundaries put forward by district councillors.

They had been told by the Boundary Committee for England to come up with ideas to ensure each councillor represented roughly the same number of electors.

A bid by Conservative leader Cllr Tim Taylor to whittle the current 31 councillors down to "29 or 30" was lost by three votes and members opted to push ahead with a 28 councillors option.

Under the proposal, the main changes would see the ward of Aville Vale - currently served by Cllr Roger Webber - abolished and split between Exmoor, Dunster and Porlock and District.

Cutcombe itself would go into Exmoor, Wootton Courtenay to Porlock and District and Timberscombe to Dunster.

The Exmoor ward would then be renamed Greater Exmoor and Dunster would become Dunster and Timberscombe, with Porlock and District remaining the same.

Quarme - served by Cllr Christopher White - would be split up, with Brompton Regis joining Brompton Ralph and Haddon to form a new ward called Brendon.

And Winsford and Exton would go into Dulverton and Brushford, which, in turn, would be renamed Dulverton and District.

Elworthy, currently in Brompton Ralph and Haddon - served by Cllr Keith Turner - would go into Old Cleeve, along with Luxborough, Monksilver, Nettlecombe, Roadwater, Washford, Treborough and Old Cleeve itself.

One councillor would be lost in the Minehead and Alcombe wards, with Alcombe becoming a single ward and a new ward of Minehead Central being created.

The potential loss of three councillors across the district would mean the average number of electors in each ward going up for some, while others, like Williton, would stay the same as each councillor would serve an average of around 1,000 electors.

Executive director Bruce Lang told last Wednesday's special council meeting the proposed changes would only leave the ward of Stogursey statistically "over represented" but believed that could be justified by the additional workload likely to be created by the development of Hinkley C.

But he said the vast majority of parish councils had opposed any changes being made at all to the current wards.

However, the review was deemed necessary by the Boundary Committee as the existing ward of Alcombe East had 40 per cent fewer electors than the ward average, while Williton had 17 per cent more.

The committee is expected to publish a set of draft recommendations showing what the proposed new ward boundaries will be later this year.

Those draft recommendations will then be subject to further public consultation, with the process due for completion in the autumn.