THE new structure of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council will be thrashed out at a series of crucial meetings during the coming weeks.

Councillors have to hammer out an agreement to see who will sit on the all-important management committee which will dominate the decision making process of the new set-up.

Residents have already been consulted on which of several constitution options they favour and nearly three out of four of those who replied, together with many groups and businesses, supported a management and constitution scheme which was adopted by a full council meeting on April 25.

Weymouth and Portland and all other councils have been required to make the changes to meet new government legislation under the Local Government Act 2000.

Weymouth and Portland democratic services manager Andrew Brett said the structure of council committees was still being sorted out ready for the annual meeting on May 23.

He added: "What will be happening during the next fortnight is that every councillor will officially declare themselves for a political group such as Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative or Independent.

"Once that is achieved and they have appointed a leader and a deputy leader then each party will be allocated a specific number of seats on each committee proportionate to the overall number of seats each party holds.

"This will comfortably allocate most committee seats but, as one party may be entitled to a fraction of a seat, then how that number will be rounded up or down will be the subject of negotiation.

"All allocations will be decided before the council meeting on May 23 when specifically named councillors will be announced to fill those seats."

Labour holds the largest number of seats with 15 and their leader, Coun Anne Thomas, said: "We are a hung authority with no overall party in control.

"The new council was voted for by the public and it is in the interests of the public that there is cross-party commitment to both the management and policy and scrutiny committees."

Liberal Democrat leader, Coun Brian Ellis, whose party holds 10 seats, said: "The new council is being set up in a very fair way.

"We have retained proportionality which we didn't have to do.

"Management and constitution lets us have a larger management committee rather than a small cabinet structure as contained in other options.

"All in all the electorate has got what it wanted and the council has as well. All parties must now work together to ensure it works."

Conservatives hold six seats and their leader, Coun Hazel Bruce, said: "We all have read the mountains of paperwork and know how this new system will work in theory but we will have to see what happens in practice.

"At the end of the day the management committee will be making the decisions for the borough and it is those policies that we will have to live with.

"I can see problems arising at planning committee meetings because under the new system councillors cannot be substituted to sit on the committee.

"If planning committee councillors are all struck down with the flu we're going to have problems.

"We are all on very fast learning curves. It should be an interesting time."

Independents hold four seats and leader, Coun Les Ames, said: "I am quite happy with proportional representation. It worked well in previous years and I am happy to support it now."