Margate West is an electoral division of Kent County Council covering Westgate-on-Sea

Westgate-on-Sea

Westgate-on-Sea is a seaside town in northeast Kent, England, with a population of 6,600. It is within the Thanet local government district and borders the larger seaside resort of Margate...

, Westbrook and Garlinge

Garlinge

Garlinge is a village in the suburbs of Margate in Kent, United Kingdom, situated 2 km southwest of the centre of the town. It is in the Thanet local government district. There is a small selection of shops in the village, such as a bakery, newsagents, barbers and also a petrol station...

. In the 2009 election, 3668 people voted out of an electorate of 11,817 and the Conservative Robert Burgess was returned.

Up to 1973 the name applied to a ward

Wards of the United Kingdom

A ward in the United Kingdom is an electoral district at sub-national level represented by one or more councillors. It is the primary unit of British administrative and electoral geography .-England:...

 of Margate

Margate

-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....

 Municipal District

Municipal district

A municipal district is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly referring to a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them....

. When the Municipal District was included in the Thanet

Thanet

Thanet is a local government district of Kent, England which was formed under the Local Government Act 1972, and came into being on 1 April 1974...

 Borough

Borough status in the United Kingdom

Borough status in the United Kingdom is granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The status is purely honorary, and does not give any additional powers to the council or inhabitants of the district...

in 1974, Margate West ward elected three councillors to the new Borough, but following the boundary changes of 1979 this was reduced to two.