The proposed local government review of community and electoral arrangements, feared by many community councils, has been postponed.

Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) began a review of the communities and electoral arrangements in Monmouthshire in June 2012 in line with the council's duty under the Local Government Act 1972 to keep these arrangements under review.

The last stage of the process was the consultation on the draft proposals which finished in March 2014.

Since the review began in 2012, a number of white papers and proposals have been published by the Welsh Government which indirectly effect the review, most recently the white paper titled Devolution, Democracy and Delivery White Paper – Reforming Local Government: Power to Local People.

The White Paper required the new local authorities recommended by Welsh Government to have completed a review of the community councils within its area by 2022.

With changes to communities and their electoral arrangements only able to take effect from the next set of ordinary council elections, the working group felt that it would be illogical and confusing to the electorate to implement new electoral arrangements and community arrangements for the 2017 local council elections and another potentially different set of arrangements following 2022, especially given that there will be confusion over the new local authority arrangements and new county council seats during that period as well.

John Pearson, Local Democracy Manager for MCC wanted to thank councils for taking the time to respond and said: "Work completed so far, including the valuable input during the consultation stages, will not be wasted as these can be fed in to the review for completion in 2022 and highlights a number of errors with the current arrangements that will need to be addressed at that time."