Leaders react to report on merging local authorities

Shake-up would save £2.94bn but there are concerns combining councils could take away local accountability

‘IT IS important we remember we are here to serve the people’ – council leaders in Hampshire believe any shake-up of local government would require careful consideration.

On Friday the County Councils Network (CCN) published findings that merging district and county councils in each area into a single unitary council could save £2.94bn over five years nationally.

In Hampshire this would mean combining 11 district councils – including Fareham, Gosport and Havant – with the county council to make one body that would control all areas of local government.

The government is currently considering this as an option as part of the recovery from the Covid pandemic in its ‘devolution and local recovery’ white paper.

Gosport Borough Council leader, Councillor Mark Hook, believed the county would still have to be divided up for this to work.

He said: ‘What could be done within Hampshire is divide it into three areas and have west, east and north. That way you would still have councillors representing the individual areas and still have the individual identity of places like Fareham, Havant, Gosport, Winchester and so on.

‘I agree with the government’s thinking that the maximum for an authority should be around 600,000 people, because Hampshire is just too big itself.

‘It is important we remember we are here to serve the people.

‘Councillors are elected to represent them and make decisions on their behalf and one of the problems a huge unitary authority would have is it would be more officer driven rather than elected official driven.’

Fareham council leader Cllr Sean Woodward, said the financial benefits had to be weighed up.

He said: ‘Money is incredibly important to councils and most councils are strapped for cash because government stopped funding them.

‘But so is local democracy and we have to be as close to the people as we can be. While saving money is important so is delivering a bespoke service – you can’t have a one size fits all.’

Previous plans to unite councils in Portsmouth, Southampton, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to form a Solent council and make savings of £900m fell through in 2016.