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Post by hullenedge on Aug 28, 2020 9:24:21 GMT
Good god, what is this abomination? The district councils' model for unitary councils. ( link) It looks like they've given up before starting. The "Dales" authority is ok-ish, but Scarborough & Selby (plus York? ??) They *really* need to pull their thumb out if we are to avoid a single unitary county. And they're losing the information war. The NYCC website is full of info on their proposal, including recordings of the presentations including loads 'n' loads of detail. The SBC presentation on Tuesday we were told would not be recorded, but the presentation would be made available. I have yet to obtain this presentation, either emailed or online, and the website is so bad I had to get that map image from the Scarborough News as you can't actually link to anything on the GetChangeRight website. This reminds me of the two multi-member constituencies for North Yorks proposed by ERS in one of their schemes.
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Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,726
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Post by Adrian on Aug 28, 2020 9:26:06 GMT
It's sad to see the hollowing-out of local democracy. The two-tier system created in 1974 was never ideal though. Perhaps town and parish councils will gradually get more powers, to compensate for the changes. As far as Gloucestershire is concerned, It may end up with a single county-wide unitary authority. It's difficult to split it sensibly, though a Chilterns/Severn split is okay.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Aug 28, 2020 9:26:35 GMT
The best solution is to bring back the old UDCs and RDCs and use them as the basis for new areas, some two tier and some not.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 28, 2020 9:56:51 GMT
If you're leaving the district boundaries as they are, I can't see how you can make two viable authorities out of Gloucestershire, because Tewkesbury is leftovers for both Cheltenham and Gloucester, but if those three go together then you have to add the Forest, which leaves Stroud and Cotswold too small to stand on their own. So I'd expect a single unitary to be the favoured government option there.
That said, have we actually had any information from the government on how this process is meant to work? Given that MHCLG is notoriously underfunded, that they're trying to make significant alterations to the planning system and that there are at least three different coronavirus-related crises they still need to deal with properly, I'm not convinced they'll have the time to devote to trying to do this in any ordered way. And if they try to do it in a disordered way with non-broke councils, I suspect they'll get judicially reviewed anyway.
So I do wonder if it'll actually only end up happening in cases where councils have had to go for a section 114 notice.
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Post by John Chanin on Aug 28, 2020 10:27:14 GMT
I don't agree - if you're going to split Gloucestershire into two unitaries the Forest essentially has to go in with Gloucester - the links down the A40 are strong and it's a major commercial centre for the Forest, to a far greater extent than Cheltenham. The problem you've got is the Tewkesbury's bizzare salient which separates the two. That would need to go in any proposed "West Gloucestershire" unitary - but ideally you don't want the rest of the district in there, since Bishop's Cleeve is very definitely in Cheltenham's hinterland. Stroud could probably go either way - I'm inclined to have it in with Cheltenham because it makes more sense being included in the Cotswolds. In turn, that means the bits of Tewkesbury which could go either way (the town itself, plus the suburbia between Chelt and Glos) should probably go with Gloucester to make the populations more even. Add the Forest of Dean to Herefordshire and Tewkesbury to Worcestershire. What's left is Gloucestershire. Cheltenham and Gloucester are parts of the same sprawling conurbation. It makes absolutely no sense to put them in different unitaries. What are you all thinking of?
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Post by greenhert on Aug 28, 2020 11:09:46 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored.
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European Lefty
Labour
Can be bribed with salted liquorice
Posts: 5,552
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Post by European Lefty on Aug 28, 2020 11:19:00 GMT
Whoever came up with the idea of the Forest of Dean being linked with Stroud and Gloucester appears to have forgotten about the River Severn-the split instead needs to be north (Forest of Dean, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham) and south (Gloucester, Stroud and Cotswolds) : www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-53922221Over my dead body!
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European Lefty
Labour
Can be bribed with salted liquorice
Posts: 5,552
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Post by European Lefty on Aug 28, 2020 11:21:23 GMT
It's sad to see the hollowing-out of local democracy. The two-tier system created in 1974 was never ideal though. Perhaps town and parish councils will gradually get more powers, to compensate for the changes. As far as Gloucestershire is concerned, It may end up with a single county-wide unitary authority. It's difficult to split it sensibly, though a Chilterns/Severn split is okay. That's not really any better, although I suppose a county at least has some level of local identity where as "Stroud, Gloucester and the Six Fingers Forest most certainly does not
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,061
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Post by peterl on Aug 28, 2020 11:36:33 GMT
This report is suggesting 25 councils for the whole of England. That's worse than one unitary per county. Let's take an example - under these numbers the whole south west probably gets 2 councils. So Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire Council and Avon, Gloucestershire and Somerset Council. The south east maybe gets perhaps 4. So say one for Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, one for Berkshire and Surrey, one for Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West Sussex, one for East Sussex and Kent. These are huge areas, not really local government at all. Whole county unitaries are bad enough, remote, unwieldily and out of touch. This is something else. Fortunatly, no one size fits all reform of this radical nature is likely to be accepted.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 28, 2020 11:54:18 GMT
It's sad to see the hollowing-out of local democracy. The two-tier system created in 1974 was never ideal though. Perhaps town and parish councils will gradually get more powers, to compensate for the changes.As far as Gloucestershire is concerned, It may end up with a single county-wide unitary authority. It's difficult to split it sensibly, though a Chilterns/Severn split is okay. The problem with that is that you restore confusion ("who does what?") without competence.
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,061
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Post by peterl on Aug 28, 2020 12:01:10 GMT
I think this "confusion" problem really is overstated. If its really an issue, the councils in a county can share a website (Dorset did this for years before the merger), you click on what you want to do (e.g. report a pothole) and the info just goes to the correct council.
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Post by kvasir on Aug 28, 2020 13:13:36 GMT
On North Yorkshire. I agree with those that suggest a new North Riding of Richmond shire, Hambleton, Ryedale, and Scarborough as one council, with a West Riding (or West Yorkshire facing) Harrogate, Craven, and Selby being together as being the best of a bad bunch of options. Obviously Selby is really out on a limb and would probably scupper the option but Selby is always like that.
I think it is relatively clear that Skiption, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Selby etc. all are economically relatively quite close to to Leeds/Bradford (hence the Leeds City Region idea). Whether it would I work as a unity I dont know. Certainly it wouldn't be my first choice.
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Post by matureleft on Aug 28, 2020 13:30:38 GMT
Has anyone defined the purposes of this exercise? Is it: 1. To save as much money on the administration of local government as possible? 2. To act as an emergency mechanism when councils become unsustainable? 3. To produce coherent areas of local administration that locals can understand? 4. To produce areas of relative economic coherence regardless of what locals might perceive as "their" area? 5. To secure local representative democracy where a person might have some understanding of who represents them? 6. To secure party political gain, eliminating inconvenient councils? 7. To implement Redcliffe-Maud 50 years after it was written, securing single tier governance? 8. To provide a platform for ensuring elected mayors? It's clearly fun, but what exactly is or are the objective(s)? Some of these are clearly mutually contradictory.
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 11,529
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 28, 2020 14:49:18 GMT
This report is suggesting 25 councils for the whole of England. That's worse than one unitary per county. Let's take an example - under these numbers the whole south west probably gets 2 councils. So Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire Council and Avon, Gloucestershire and Somerset Council. The south east maybe gets perhaps 4. So say one for Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, one for Berkshire and Surrey, one for Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West Sussex, one for East Sussex and Kent. These are huge areas, not really local government at all. Whole county unitaries are bad enough, remote, unwieldily and out of touch. This is something else. Fortunatly, no one size fits all reform of this radical nature is likely to be accepted. This is from the County Councils Network though so it's an inherently biased report solely based on cash savings. Even the government are starting to get the message that whole county unitaries don't work (thus this apparent upper limit of 600 or 700k we're likely to see). Some of them were on the edge of being able to viably function pre-COVID and the feedback they're getting from district councillors (and remember there's an awful lot more of them, also predominantly Tory, than county councillors). Anyway, the prevailing understanding is that there is not going to be any forced unitaryisation, the government will merely pass the buck and let the councils fight it out amongst themselves (but with the upper limit being pretty hard as a sop to district/borough councillors). What there seems to be complete radio silence on is whether existing urban unitaries are going to be specifically mentioned to be included in merging with neighbouring authorities or whether they will be left alone.
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Post by bigfatron on Aug 28, 2020 15:34:44 GMT
'County councils publish report justifying continuing existence of county councils shock'
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Aug 28, 2020 20:14:00 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored. And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report?
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maxque
Non-Aligned
Posts: 8,991
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Post by maxque on Aug 28, 2020 20:20:22 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored. And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? Not accountants.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 28, 2020 20:32:45 GMT
Reports from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on local government are not trustworthy-all PwC care about is the bottom line, nothing else. This report should be ignored. And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? Why do we need such reports?
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Aug 28, 2020 20:46:44 GMT
And who would you turn to for a report? And who would fund said report? Why do we need such reports? Consultants need work in these difficult times.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 28, 2020 20:51:18 GMT
Why do we need such reports? Consultants need work in these difficult times. Don't get me started on consultants. "Pad out to help out"
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