PEOPLE will be able to cast their votes in a pub car park and a cricket club after a shake up of Bradford’s polling districts.

This afternoon Bradford Council will decide whether to allocate a number of buildings to be used as new polling stations in future elections.

It is the first review of Bradford’s polling stations for five years, and Councillors will be told that a number of new housing developments has required the creation of extra polling sites before the next election.

And other polling stations are being reviewed due to concerns about disabled access and a lack of parking spaces.

On election days, buildings across the District including church halls, schools and community centres become polling stations to ensure every resident in the district has a place to vote as close to their homes as possible.

At the next election residents of certain areas of Apperley Bridge could be casting their vote in the car park of the George and Dragon pub, which the Council has proposed as a mobile polling station.

Today’s meeting will be told that the Council legally had to review its polling stations by the end of January - and that the last full review took place in 2014.

Bradford Council holds review on polling station suitability

A consultation into polling stations held over the Summer asked the public if they had any issues with accessing their polling stations during the last election, which took place in May.

Due to this consultation, access to a number of polling stations will be reviewed.

These include the Crossflatts Over 50’s Community Centre, where concerns had been raised over disabled access and signage, and the nursery at Nessfield Primary School in Keighley, where voters complained about insufficient parking and access issues during the May election. At future elections the main school building, rather than the nursery, will be used as the local polling station.

Voters in the Canterbury area complained about parking and access issues at one of their polling stations - the caretaker’s bungalow at Horton Park Primary School. In future, the Arc Building on Arum Street will replace it as the local polling station.

One polling station in the Toller area - Little Lane Church, shut in July. The nearby Toller Youth Cafe will now be used as a polling station for that area.

In other areas, the creation of new housing developments and the subsequent increase in population will require new polling stations to be created.

New polling stations include the George and Dragon car park, Thackley Cricket Club, the Springdale Community Centre in Greengates and Eccleshill Reform Church.

A number of polling districts will also be re-aligned due to changes in population numbers in certain areas.

The Council will be urged to approve the changes to meet the early December deadline for the next Electoral Register.

A report into the changes says: “Local authorities have a duty to review the accessibility of all polling places to disabled voters and ensure that every polling place and prospective polling place for which it is responsible is accessible to disabled voters, so far as is reasonable and practicable.”

The Council meets in City Hall at 4pm.