Backing for bid to split county into two councils

PLANS for Gloucestershire to be split into two unitary councils have been backed by civic chiefs in Cheltenham who see it as the more democratic option for local government reorganisation.

- CARMELO GARCIA

Council services in the spa town are currently split between Gloucestershire County Council, the upper-tier authority, which is responsible for education, social care and waste disposal while bin collections, housing and planning is the responsibility of Cheltenham Borough Council.

However, the Government wants to do away with the two-tier system and so Shire Hall along with the six district authorities have worked together in recent months to come up with two proposals for how local government could be organised in the future.

These are for one single unitary authority or splitting the county into East and West. Ultimately the decision on how local government is reorganised will be down to ministers.

But in the spa town councillors have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the East/West option. These unitaries would align with the boroughs of Cheltenham and Tewkesbury with the Cotswold district in the east representing a population of around 311,000.