Future Worcester

Should Worcester have more parish councils? Should there be a Worcester town council?

How Worcester residents are represented at a local level is changing, and Future Worcester is aimed at gathering your views on how the city should be governed after 2028.

Worcestershire as a whole will move to new unitary council arrangements in April of that year. Worcester City Council will no longer exist, and its services will be run by another – much bigger – authority.

Alongside that process there is an opportunity to create a new, local parish or town council, or more than one such new local council.

Two parts of the city already have parish councils: St Peter's and Warndon Villages. But other Worcester residents would have no equivalent local voice unless new arrangements are created.

The map shows the areas in the city which have parish councils and those which do not.

To gather your views on how your community should be represented in the future, we are holding a two-stage Future Worcester consultation. It forms a legal process known as a Community Governance Review (CGR).

This is an opportunity to ensure that Worcester’s historic identity will continue.

Future Worcester will look at options including whether our city should have:

• a single town council for the whole city,
• a town council just for the currently unparished areas,
• several smaller parish councils based on neighbourhood identity.

Your views will help shape how Worcester is represented locally for decades to come.

Phase one of Future Worcester closed on Monday 15 June. See the results of the phase one consultation.

Details of the phase two consultation will be announced soon.

Find out more

We have prepared a guidance document to give you more information about the Future Worcester process.

pdf Read the guidance document (473 KB) .

What happens next?

Worcester City Council is legally responsible for conducting this review. The Government recommends that local community governance reviews are held every 10–15 years. Worcester has not held one in that time, so the Council agreed on 24 February 2026 to conduct the Future Worcester exercise.

The results of the first phase of the consultation were reported to the City Council on 14 July 2026. The Council agreed its preferred option is a draft proposal to create a parish council for the City of Worcester. This option will be the subject of a second consultation in September 2026.

The City Council will then make a decision on the final recommendations at a meeting in late 2026.