Communities Secretary “minded to” back mergers in Somerset and Suffolk

The Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, has announced that he is “minded to” back two more proposals for local government reorganisation.

The first proposal – to merge Taunton Deane Borough Council and West Somerset District Council into a new, single district council – had been submitted to the minister in March 2017.

The second – a proposal to merge Forest Heath District Council and St Edmundsbury Borough Council into a single district council – was submitted in September 2017.

In a written ministerial statement Javid said he was satisfied, on the basis of the information currently available to him, that each of these proposals fully met the criteria he had previously said he would use for assessing proposals for merging district councils, namely that:

• the proposal was likely to improve local government in the area concerned;
• the proposal commanded local support, in particular that the merger was proposed by all councils which were to be merged and there was evidence of a good deal of local support; and
• that the proposed merged area was a credible geography, consisting of two or more existing local government areas that were adjacent, and which, if established, would not pose an obstacle to locally-led proposals for authorities to combine to serve their communities better and would facilitate joint working between local authorities.

Before the Communities Secretary takes his final decisions on these proposed mergers there will now be a period until 19 January 2018 during which those interested may make further representations to him, including that if a proposal is implemented it is with suggested modifications. The final decisions would also be subject to Parliamentary approval.

In November Javid said he was "minded to" support a proposal for the establishment of two unitary authorities in Dorset in place of the county’s nine councils.

He also indicated that he was similarly minded to implement the proposed merger of Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils into what has been dubbed a ‘super district council’.