The number of district councillors for Thanet could face a chop of more than a third in its latest review.

Thanet District Council has 56 councillors, but this could be dropped by 20 to 36.

In a meeting by the Boundary and Electoral Arrangements Working Party on Thursday, September 28, it will be discussed whether to commission an electoral review on the number, boundaries and names of wards and the number of councillors to be elected to each in Thanet.

The council has suggested a reduction to 36 councillors following some early comparisons with other councils on size and ratio between population and number of councillors.

As it stands, Thanet council has a ratio of 1:2495 (councillors:population), a significant hike from ratios in Canterbury and Shepway, which stand at 1:4101 and 1:3667.

The following options have been set out in the meeting agenda:

Option one: To request the LGBCE to undertake an electoral review of TDC in 2018 with an indicative size of council membership of approximately 36.

Option two: To request the LGBCE to undertake an electoral review of TDC in 2018 with an alternative indicative size of council.

Option three: Not to request the LGBCE to undertake a review.

Thanet council have asked for a review following the rejection of a single council formation of Dover, Canterbury and Shepway.

Since then, Canterbury city council and Shepway district council have both undertaken electoral reviews to number of councillors.

Meanwhile, Dover district council has recently agreed to undertake a review, meaning Thanet is the only east Kent council not to have undertaken/ agreed to a review.

The next steps will be a meeting of the full council to consider the item at a meeting on Thursday, October 12.

If option one or two is chosen then the Boundary and Electoral Arrangements Working party will take a major role at every stage of the process making recommendations to council after each stage of consultation.

If agreed, the next chance to implement the changes would be the elections in May 2019.

The number 36, however, is not fixed and may change as the council would need to undertake a lot of research and finalising of the number of councillors it would like before submitting its target to the LGBCE.