Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 31, 2020 14:51:18 GMT
I've been following these discussions with interest but I haven't a lot of experience of the mechanics of local government so I've mostly kept out of it. But you can't beat a good list. Over the years there have been a lot of unitarizations (if that's a word), Bucks and Nhants most recently, so it is surprising, to me at least, that there remain as many as 24 two-tier counties. Here they are.
Cambridgeshire Cumbria Derbyshire Devon
East Sussex
Essex Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Hertfordshire Kent
Lancashire Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk North Yorkshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Somerset Staffordshire
Suffolk Surrey Warwickshire
West Sussex Worcestershire I'm assuming that existing UAs will be left alone, at least for the time being, even if they fall far below the suggested minimum of 300,000. This isn't because they necessarily make sense as local government units, because I'm sure a lot of them don't (especially the smaller ones); but as a matter of practicality and political deliverability it makes sense to tackle one issue at a time so my guess is that any existing UA will not be disturbed unless it runs out of cash.
Focusing on two-tier counties, therefore, I'd suggest that only a few are small enough to be a realistic candidate to form a single unitary authority along the lines of Cornwall or Wiltshire. Cumbria must surely be the prime candidate here, followed by Glos, Oxon, Som and Worcs. Maybe a case could be made for Cambs, Leics or Warwks but for geographical or other reasons I'm guessing that they would probably be split. Could each of the Sussexes form a unitary?
So that leaves at least 14 counties, probably more, that would need to be split into two or more unitaries - some of which (e.g. Herts, Lancs, Surrey) seem to lend themselves to subdivision much better than others. Sorry if this is a slightly rambling and inconclusive post but this is because, uncharacteristically for me, I'm not advocating for a particular point of view (not yet having arrived at one).
The majority of those counties would need to be split up into multiple unitary authorities (even under the restrictive population criteria) with the exceptions of (most of) Cumbria, East Sussex, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Worcestershire. Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire really need two unitary authorities each (even discounting existing unitary authorities). West Sussex is too large to form one unitary, not only because of geographical and population size but also because of the diverging identity and needs of the south coast of Sussex (Worthing, Adur, and Arun should form a separate authority to Chichester, Horsham, Crawley and Mid Sussex). Well, no. With West Sussex you'd essentially want either B&H to swallow Adur & Worthing (the county boundaries between the two Sussexes have been completely artificial since Mid Sussex was moved to West Sussex in the '70s) or for those two authorities to join Burgess Hill & Haywards Heath & southwestern bits of Horsham in a 'wrap around' commuter belt authority. If the latter happened you'd then put Arun & Chichester together to have a western authority (Bognor & to a slightly lesser extent Littlehampton look west rather than east) plus south western parts of Horsham to make it up to 300k. Crawley, the rest of Horsham & Mid Sussex and at least the north western bits of Wealden, possibly going over as far as Crowborough, would go in together with the rest of East Sussex as one. If there was no 300k lower limit it would be much easier. Chichester & Arun. Worthing & Adur. Horsham, Mid Sussex & Crawley for West Sussex. Hastings & Rother. Eastbourne, Lewes & southern Wealden. The northern bit of Wealden would be carved up between the two (plus sorting out the nonsensical existing Wealden/Rother boundaries north of Bexhill) for East Sussex |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,842 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 31, 2020 15:22:12 GMT
No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. One of the big flaws in the current round of unitarisation is that the government is refusing to consider crossing county boundaries, so we're going to end up with a continuation of the 1974 mess, but just shuffled around. This issue was one of the first things raised in the North Yorkshire arrangements. |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,056
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Post by Khunanup on Aug 31, 2020 15:38:45 GMT
No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. One of the big flaws in the current round of unitarisation is that the government is refusing to consider crossing county boundaries, so we're going to end up with a continuation of the 1974 mess, but just shuffled around. This issue was one of the first things raised in the North Yorkshire arrangements. Ceremonial county boundaries should be uncoupled from local authority boundaries as already happens with Stockton. Local authorities should be about communities for which lines on a map often (but not always!) mean absolutely nothing. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,058
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Post by Sibboleth on Aug 31, 2020 15:45:19 GMT
The continued use of the post-1974 framework for ceremonial purposes is bizarre and perverse. Would make much more sense to use some form of the traditional counties. Doing so might even make it easier to make certain obvious but presently difficult decisions over administrative boundaries, as, no, X-shire is not being abolished, look...
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Post by greenchristian on Aug 31, 2020 16:05:31 GMT
The continued use of the post-1974 framework for ceremonial purposes is bizarre and perverse. Would make much more sense to use some form of the traditional counties. Doing so might even make it easier to make certain obvious but presently difficult decisions over administrative boundaries, as, no, X-shire is not being abolished, look... Most of the cases where the two sets of counties are substantially different are either the Metropolitan Counties or Greater London, none of which have any two-tier councils (unless you count a few parished areas). I'm curious as to which areas you think would benefit from using the abolished counties. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,058
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Post by Sibboleth on Aug 31, 2020 16:16:30 GMT
Hmm? No, I mean, I don't see any need for there to be a link between ceremonial counties and administrative divisions.
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Aug 31, 2020 18:35:02 GMT
No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. I would ideally want to see an urban focused UA covering the city of Oxford and its immediate suburbs. Kidlington, Wheatley, Sandford on Thames, and the northern parts of the Vale could all join the city to form an authority, which wouldn't be far off 300k. It would cross the traditional county boundary, and you'd be left with rump South Oxfordshire (Thame in particular would be really on a limb), but it probably reflects natural ties a bit better. That might make sense as a city and county unitary (like Shropshire in a way),but I don't know if the numbers add up for the county unitary if you take those places out. |
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Post by bjornhattan on Aug 31, 2020 18:48:59 GMT
I would ideally want to see an urban focused UA covering the city of Oxford and its immediate suburbs. Kidlington, Wheatley, Sandford on Thames, and the northern parts of the Vale could all join the city to form an authority, which wouldn't be far off 300k. It would cross the traditional county boundary, and you'd be left with rump South Oxfordshire (Thame in particular would be really on a limb), but it probably reflects natural ties a bit better. That might make sense as a city and county unitary (like Shropshire in a way),but I don't know if the numbers add up for the county unitary if you take those places out. Oxfordshire is 687k, so you should be able to form both a city authority and a county authority out of that. Indeed, if you're willing to cross county boundaries, the northernmost 80,000 or so could be put into an authority with southern Warwickshire or westernmost Northants. Banburyshire does have strong ties outside Oxfordshire and culturally doesn't really belong with the rest of the rural authority. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,842
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 31, 2020 19:22:17 GMT
The continued use of the post-1974 framework for ceremonial purposes is bizarre and perverse. Would make much more sense to use some form of the traditional counties. Doing so might even make it easier to make certain obvious but presently difficult decisions over administrative boundaries, as, no, X-shire is not being abolished, look... Most of the cases where the two sets of counties are substantially different are either the Metropolitan Counties or Greater London, none of which have any two-tier councils (unless you count a few parished areas). I'm curious as to which areas you think would benefit from using the abolished counties. North Lincolnshire. Selby. The Lost Lands of North Yorkshire. The SBC presentation on unitaryisation said there were better links between the southern end of SBC and the East Riding, and the northern end of SBC and Yorkshire Teesside, but The Rules don't allow that to be considered. Plus, my prefered model would add most of Selby to the East Riding. It also demonstrates the nonsense of the "300,000 population" rule, Redcar & Cleveland unitary is 140,000. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Aug 31, 2020 19:30:37 GMT
That might make sense as a city and county unitary (like Shropshire in a way),but I don't know if the numbers add up for the county unitary if you take those places out. Oxfordshire is 687k, so you should be able to form both a city authority and a county authority out of that. Indeed, if you're willing to cross county boundaries, the northernmost 80,000 or so could be put into an authority with southern Warwickshire or westernmost Northants. Banburyshire does have strong ties outside Oxfordshire and culturally doesn't really belong with the rest of the rural authority. Yeah, but,remember, the part of South Oxon west of the Thames + the Vale of White Horse really should be in West Berks,as it always was,because that's where its community ties lie and transport links side with and that leaves Oxon about 500k if I remember correctly.You could have the pattern you wanted with 2 authorities of about 250k then,which is the idelal size for one rural and one city authority.The Banburyshire idea sounds like pitchfork bait anyway! And,also, that expanded West Berks with the Vale of White Horse and part of South Oxon in it would also have a population between 250k and 300k! |
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Post by bjornhattan on Aug 31, 2020 19:34:42 GMT
Oxfordshire is 687k, so you should be able to form both a city authority and a county authority out of that. Indeed, if you're willing to cross county boundaries, the northernmost 80,000 or so could be put into an authority with southern Warwickshire or westernmost Northants. Banburyshire does have strong ties outside Oxfordshire and culturally doesn't really belong with the rest of the rural authority. Yeah, but,remember, the part of South Oxon west of the Thames + the Vale of White Horse really should be in West Berks,as it always was,because that's where its community ties lie and transport links side with and that leaves Oxon about 500k if I remember correctly.You could have the pattern you wanted with 2 authorities of about 250k then,which is the idelal size for one rural and one city authority.The Banburyshire idea sounds like pitchfork bait anyway! Pitchfork bait for counties enthusiasts? Yes. Pitchfork bait for residents of the area? No. Note that my proposal would annex parts of the Vale of White Horse into Oxford City. This isn't unprecedented (Osney, Grandpont, New Hinksey). I would certainly annex Botley, Cumnor, and Kennington, and if numbers required it even Abingdon (though ideally not - Berkshire's old capital really ought to be in Berkshire). |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Aug 31, 2020 19:48:01 GMT
No,that would be an awful structure. The council structure needs to change, but not that way. Firstly, they need to bring the Vale of White Horse DC and parts of South Oxon DC west of the Thames into Berkshire and merge them with West Berks, as is their logical place and historical connections. Purley, the part of Tilehurst in West Berks, Calcot and Holybrook need to be moved into Reading, as does Earley, North Shinfield,Lower Earley and Woodley from Wokingham. The rest of Wokingham needs to be split between RBWM (Twyford, Remenham,Wargrave,Hare Hatch,Hurst,Sonning and Ruscombe) and the rest being put in a new East Berks with Bracknell Forest. After that, you should merge the remaining unitaries in Oxon to be Cherwell + West Oxon and Oxford + South Oxfordshire, the latter unitary being a bit sprawling and services would have to be centralised in Oxford, but there's no good solution for rump South Oxon. One of the big flaws in the current round of unitarisation is that the government is refusing to consider crossing county boundaries, so we're going to end up with a continuation of the 1974 mess, but just shuffled around. This issue was one of the first things raised in the North Yorkshire arrangements. Interesting, what are the North Yorks issues,if you would outline them briefly? The 1974 changes certainly tried to enlarge Oxon for, I suspect, financial reasons, at the expense of Berks. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Aug 31, 2020 20:16:47 GMT
Yeah, but,remember, the part of South Oxon west of the Thames + the Vale of White Horse really should be in West Berks,as it always was,because that's where its community ties lie and transport links side with and that leaves Oxon about 500k if I remember correctly.You could have the pattern you wanted with 2 authorities of about 250k then,which is the idelal size for one rural and one city authority.The Banburyshire idea sounds like pitchfork bait anyway! Pitchfork bait for counties enthusiasts? Yes. Pitchfork bait for residents of the area? No. Note that my proposal would annex parts of the Vale of White Horse into Oxford City. This isn't unprecedented (Osney, Grandpont, New Hinksey). I would certainly annex Botley, Cumnor, and Kennington, and if numbers required it even Abingdon (though ideally not - Berkshire's old capital really ought to be in Berkshire). But the Banbury area has no ties to Warwickshire and it only has limited ties to Northants. I'm sure they wouldn't want to be in an authority stretching all the way to the edge of Market Harborough too. The annexation of Oxford suburbs like Dean Court, Cumnor,Botley and Kennington to the west of the City itself makes sense as they are functionally part of the city,just like those parts of Reading in Wokingham and West Berks. But Kennington should be the southern extent, Cumnor the western extent,Kidlington the northern extent and Wheatley the eastern extent. |
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Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
Posts: 2,922
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Sept 1, 2020 16:28:52 GMT
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Post by emidsanorak on Sept 4, 2020 7:19:40 GMT
Perhaps it is now time to dust off Derek Senior's Memorandum of Dissent to the Redcliffe-Maud Report: buff.ly/2l69Jsp |
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,112
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Post by ilerda on Sept 4, 2020 8:21:43 GMT
Perhaps it is now time to dust off Derek Senior's Memorandum of Dissent to the Redcliffe-Maud Report: buff.ly/2l69JspWith a bit of fiddling around with the district boundaries and perhaps the creation of some new ones this could work as a basis for the new system. If you see regions as being equivalent to beefed-up Combined Authorities and expanded to cover the rest of the country then it's essentially just another form of two-tier government. I hate the idea of provinces though. They're unnecessary and cumbersome and have very little relation to anything identifiable or useful. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 16:01:29 GMT
Just had a read through this thread and can’t help but feeling that if the governments plans go ahead the local government map of England will look an even bigger mess than what we’ve got at the moment.
Here’s my idea for what it’s worth. The trend does seem to be towards creating county wide unitary authorities with combined authorities as strategic/regional authorities. This system has its advantages but it needs to applied uniformly throughout the country.
The general rules should be:
Unitary authorities with populations in the 250,000 to 500,000 rage with some flexibility if there’s local circumstances which warrant it. Traditional county boundaries should be observed and splitting of existing authorities should be avoided where possible. New authorities should usually be on a whole county basis with counties only being sub-divided where they are too large for a single authority or different parts of an area have a very different character (rural, urban, suburban, commuter belt). There should be a lowered population limit of 150,000 for urban areas which have a history of municipal independence either as a current unitary authority or an historic county borough. The same should apply for historic counties with a strong sense of local identity.
Here’s my idea for the West Midlands region;
Greater Birmingham Combined Authority area;
Birmingham
Dudley
Sandwell
Solihull (minus Meriden ward)
Walsall
Wolverhampton (plus Bilbrook, Codsall, Himley, Lower Penn, Perton, Trysull & Seisdon and Wombourne parishes from South Staffordshire)
Severn and Wye Combined Authority area;
Herefordshire
North Worcestershire (Bromsgrove, Redditch, Wyre Forrest plus the pre-1974 Tenbury rural district from Malvern Hills and Kinver parish from South Staffordshire)
Shropshire (current unitary authority plus Bobbington, Enville, Pattingham & Patshull and Swinton parishes from South Staffordshire)
South Worcestershire (Malvern Hills minus the pre-1974 Tenbury rural district, Worcester, Wychavon)
Telford and Wrekin
Staffordshire Combined Authority area;
North Staffordshire (Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stafford, Staffordshire Moorlands, the parts of East Staffordshire in the pre-1974 Uttoxeter urban and rural districts)
South Staffordshire (Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Tamworth, the parts of East Staffordshire in the pre 1974-county borough of Burton and Tutbury rural district, and the parts of South Staffordshire in the pre-1974 Cannock rural district)
Stoke-on-Trent
Warwickshire Combined Authority area;
Coventry (plus Meriden ward from Solihull)
North Warwickshire (North Warwickshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Rugby)
South Warwickshire (Stratford, Warwick)
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,842
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 5, 2020 17:59:39 GMT
The general rules should be: ... Traditional county boundaries should be observed and splitting of existing authorities should be avoided where possible. The problem with that is that the best model for North Yorkshire would be to split Hambleton into pieces (and pinch bits off Selby). |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 18:09:27 GMT
The general rules should be: ... Traditional county boundaries should be observed and splitting of existing authorities should be avoided where possible. The problem with that is that the best model for North Yorkshire would be to split Hambleton into pieces (and pinch bits off Selby). That’s why I said crossing county boundaries and splitting districts should be avoided where possible, not avoided in all circumstances. In North Yorkshire the most sensible outcome would be to add Tadcaster and some surrounding villages to the city of York, add the rest of the Selby district to the East Riding and create a North Riding unitary for the remainder of the county council area. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,842
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 5, 2020 20:59:52 GMT
The problem with that is that the best model for North Yorkshire would be to split Hambleton into pieces (and pinch bits off Selby). That’s why I said crossing county boundaries and splitting districts should be avoided where possible, not avoided in all circumstances. In North Yorkshire the most sensible outcome would be to add Tadcaster and some surrounding villages to the city of York, add the rest of the Selby district to the East Riding and create a North Riding unitary for the remainder of the county council area. If by 'North Riding' you mean excluding Harrogate and surrounds, they yes. But the current North Yorkshire (even minus Selby) is too big. My current approximate prefered option (which is disallowed by the government rules) is something like:  |
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