'Creating a single council is in the best interests of all residents and businesses'

MAJORITY OF COUNTY COUNCILLORS BACK ONE AUTHORITY PLAN

- By JON COOPER Local democracy reporter

DERBYSHIRE County Council is set to propose a single council for Derby and Derbyshire as part of local government reorganisation plans after claiming it will be more cost effective and avoid a geographical split unlike the city, borough and district councils’ “One Derbyshire, Two Councils” proposal.

The Labour Government is aiming to set up single, unitary authorities across England with an elected mayor in two-tier authority areas like Derbyshire as part of local government reorganisation plans by merging city, county, borough and district councils.

Derbyshire’s eight district and borough councils and Derby City Council have agreed their overall preference for two unitary councils - one in the north and one in the south - to replace the county’s current ten councils and each set out their personal preferences under the “One Derbyshire, Two Councils” format while Derbyshire County Council has voted in favour of one single council.

Reform's county council leader, Cllr Alan Graves, said: “It’s clear that creating a single unitary council covering the whole of Derby and Derbyshire is in the best interests of all residents and businesses in the area.

“Creating one new council would save millions of pounds every year compared to the current system of Local Government and options for creating two unitary councils. It would also cost less to set up and be less disruptive as major services such as adult care and highways would not need to be separated out over two areas - which would be more costly as our financial analysis shows.”

The former Conservative county council administration originally voted for one single unitary authority and after the current Reform administration came into power after the May elections it initially preferred the concept of two unitary councils.