THE North Wales League are to scrap plans to reduce the number of sides in the top two divisions to 10 with mixed first and second team leagues reintroduced from next season.

A survey sent out by the league was completed by 550 members and expressed an overwhelming desire to see the Premier Division and Division One remain with 12 teams.

That decision means that Hawarden Park, who were officially relegated last week under the planned 10-team structure, have been given a Premier Division lifeline, while rock-bottom Chirk are also not yet down.

Instead of just the Division One winners gaining promotion there will be two sides with Pontblyddyn, Mochdre, Bersham and Bethesda all in with a chance of a top two finish.

At the other end of the second-tier, Mold, deducted 30 points following a player registration error, are now out of the relegation zone, 19 points clear of the second from bottom Abergele.

In addition, the first and second XI teams will no longer be kept apart with 390 of 550 (70 per cent) completed forms expressing a want to return to the old format.

The change to keep the two teams separate has seen a decline in fixture fulfilment and will hopefully increase competition levels once more.

An email circulated to clubs in the North Wales League read: "Thank you all for completing the survey over the last few weeks, the response was outstanding with 550 usable forms completed.

The committee will now follow your requests and re-structure the league back to a mixed first and second team in time for the 2019 season.

"There is a lot of work but the format will be based on predominantly 12 team divisions with the two lower divisions regionalised, and a separate Sunday Third XI.

"Suffice to say we will still have division winners and runners up, but the number of teams promoted and relegated as currently shown on Play Cricket will change as these were based on moving to a 10 team division format."

There is a meeting tomorrow night which will discuss the logistics of merging the second teams with the first XIs.