BUSINESS and community leaders who are working to revitalise Altrincham have hit out at Trafford Council's arrangements for a referendum on the town's future - claiming it is denying a vote to tens of thousands of residents.

The town hall is holding a referendum on plans for the town centre following development of the Altrincham Town Centre Working Plan, as Messenger reported last week.

But council chiefs have decided that in the referendum - set for October 19 - only residents who live within the town centre plan boundary will be able to vote - about 2,500 residents.

But the group that produced the Town Centre Plan, the Altrincham Town Centre Neighbourhood Plan Working Group, has hit out at this decision.

It believes a much wider electorate should be given the vote - as the current boundary only covers about five per cent of the town's catchment population.

It wants a boundary comprising the WA14 and WA15 postcodes that would include many more people who use the town entre.

But this has been rejected by the council.

A separate referendum for businesses will also use the Plan boundary, and the working group does not have any issues with that decision.

Tony Collier, the chairman of the Altrincham Neighbourhood Forum, and Mike Shields, chairman of the Neighbourhood Plan Working Group, have held meetings in a vain bid to get council chiefs to widen the electorate.

Mr Collier said: "We are absolutely furious about this. This is just not democratic and we can only think it is a matter of cost."

Mr Collier and Mr Shields said: "For the people who use the town centre, a much wider boundary needs to be defined. The resident population within the formal Plan boundary is about 2,500.

"The catchment population for Altrincham Town Centre is however somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 people. "

They said of their suggested WA14 and WA15 boundary: "This would have embraced 86 per cent of all the people involved.

"This data has been entirely ignored. Instead, following the decision of the Executive to use the Plan boundary as the referendum boundary, when the referenda are held, five per cent of the general public will be given the opportunity to vote.

"The working group believes that the council’s decision to disenfranchise the bulk of the community from the general public flies in the face of the principles embodied in the Localism Act and deliberately deprives those people from exercising their right to vote.

"It is an entirely unacceptable situation."

They point out that in other areas of the country where there is to be a similar referendum, in Milton Keynes and Ealing, the decision was taken to define a boundary that took in the catchment population, not the Plan boundary.

The cost of one-off catchment wide referendum is estimated at £100,000, of which the Government will provide £30,000.

Mr Collier and Mr Shields said: "The definition of the referenda boundary should be determined by what the democratic process properly requires and not influenced by cost considerations."

A council spokesman said: “An independent examiner considered that although Altrincham clearly has a very wide catchment area, it would be disproportionate to try and capture within the residents’ referendum area every potential shopper, or user of the leisure services that might have an interest in Altrincham.

“The examiner therefore concluded that the boundaries for both referenda should be the same and that both referenda should be limited to the residents and businesses based within the ATCNBP Area.

“The final decision for determining the referendum boundary lay with the council. However, the council could only decide to extend the referendum area, against the examiner’s recommendation, if sufficient evidence existed to justify such a decision.

“The council’s executive concluded that there were not clear reasons for rejecting the recommendation.”

Proposals in the Town Centre Plan include development of a main shopping area, new retail development, housing, car parking and community facilities.

Covering six areas including the old hospital site on Market Street and the Regent Road car park area, council chiefs say the plan will enable new development to further boost the town.