Councils rush to meet unitary status deadline

17 April 2008
 
More unitary authorities are on the way in Devon, Suffolk and Norfolk, after councils submitted their local government reorganisation plans to the Boundary Committee.

The deadline for submissions was last week, and the committee is expected to report back to the Government with its preferred options later this year. Local government minister, John Healey, asked the committee to look at the future of local government in the three counties last year, after Exeter City Council, Ipswich Borough Council and Norwich City Council all bid to break free from their respective counties.

Norfolk and Suffolk have both proposed single unitary authorities. Among the proposals, the leaders of Ipswich and St Edmundsbury borough councils, and Suffolk Coastal and Waveney district councils have called for three unitary authorities to be created in Suffolk. They argue that a unitary covering the whole of Suffolk would be ‘too massive and unwieldy’, and that issues which concern the east of the region – such as coastal erosion and urban regeneration – do not concern those in the west, which is linked to Cambridge and its associated hi-tech industries.

None of the councils has been asked to present a business case so, at this stage, it is unclear what the impact of a successful bid would be on highway services. But, a spokesperson for St Edmundsbury said the council was expected to move into new offices with Suffolk early next year, meaning the two highways departments would be ‘physically brought together’.

Graeme Fitton, head of transport at the CSS, said the only issue regarding new unitaries was one of capacity, especially regarding highways maintenance. ‘They could work adjacently, but that would defeat the object of going unitary,’ he said. ‘However, co-operative working could be a way to deal with the issue.’

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