'Not ideal': Council bid to carve its own electoral boundaries rejected

Instead, the state government has accepted a recommendation from the Victorian Electoral Commission which will lump Woodford, Bushfield and Dennington into the one ward - something it admits was "not ideal".

The carve up of wards could put some councillors in the same ward.

The looming October elections will mean candidates will have to nominate which ward they want to run in but under the rules a candidate can run in any ward even if they don't live in it.

The Victorian Electoral Commission came up with three models to choose from but the council came up with a fourth hybrid model instead which it submitted for consideration.

But, based on public feedback, the commission went with the model that got the backing of the ratepayers association.

There was, however, a change to the name of the coastal ward - which stretches from Merrivale to Hopkins Point Road. It will be known as Pertobe instead of Moyjil.

The return to wards, rather than getting to have a say on all seven councillors, has been labelled a "backward step" while others said it would lead to a better result.

The return to wards comes after the city switched to an unsubdivided municipality in 2004.

Warrnambool City Council chief executive officer Andrew Mason said defining wards based on communities of interest and projected growth was a difficult challenge.

"The seven wards as defined by the VEC are Botanic, Central, Hopkins River, Pertobe, Platypus Park, Russells Creek and Wollaston," he said.

"The wards have voting age populations which range from 3662 to 4250.

"The VEC has acknowledged that grouping Dennington in with rural communities to the north including Woodford was not ideal but notes that given Dennington's high projected growth the Wollaston ward is likely to be split at some future point."

In its final report, the commission said "there may well be no perfect single-member ward structure for regional city councils like Warrnambool".

"However, the panel must comply with the legislative requirements of the Act".

The panel also believed that, based on past elections, it was unlikely there would be a scenario in which there would be uncontested or failed elections due to a lack of nominations across all wards.

"However the panel notes that prior to changing to an unsubdivided electoral structure in 2004, the council had a history of uncontested elections under a structure of single-councillor wards," the VEC report noted.

Mr Mason said in its submission to the commission, the council had argued the Dennington community should be in its own ward, Russells Creek should maintain more of a northern corridor and border Alberline Road and that the Botanic ward should extend to north to Russells Creek.

"We also suggested a ward dedicated to the South Warrnambool and Merrivale communities," he said.

"But mapping out the wards is a tough exercise and with the finalising of the process, voters now know the wards they are voting in, while prospective candidates can approach an election knowing where and who their voter base is."