Due to the withdrawal of Settle and the folding of Stacksteads, there is
now an imbalance in the Conference divisions.

The Executive are satisfied that eleven teams will make a competitive
first division, but feel that having only nine teams in the third
division presents a serious problem with the fixtures.

It was felt that the solution to this would be to combine the second and
third division to give the 19 clubs eighteen league matches plus a
minimum of two guaranteed cup games.

This is how it looks if we left it as 3 divisions
Conference 1 was 20 games out of 22 weeks
Conference 2 was 18 games out of 22 weeks
Conference 3 was 16 games out of 22 weeks

By combining the 2 divisions it now looks like this

Conference 1 20 league games and 2 cup games
Conference 2 18 league games plus 2 cup games.
Making it more even spread across the season.
At the end of the 2024 season three teams will be relegated from the top
division, two promoted from the combined 2nd and 3rd divisions, with the
bottom ten teams from the combined division forming the third division
in 2025, leading to three divisions of ten teams.