Wealden council leaders endorse document on next steps for major shakeup of local government

On Tuesday (March 18), Wealden District Council’s cabinet endorsed the East Sussex Interim Plan — a document which sets out the initial and high-level proposals for reorganisation of local government, as well as the steps being taken by the county’s current councils to deliver the change.

The document sets out how the county council and its five district and borough councils are initially pursuing the creation of “a single unitary [authority] based on existing county boundaries”.

An extraordinary full council meeting was held immediately before cabinet members met to make their decision on the plan.

The council’s deputy leader James Partridge described the document as “a plan about making a plan” and stressed that the route of a single unitary authority could be subject to change.

Cllr Partridge (Lib Dem) said: “We should be under no illusions about where we could end up. Anyone who thinks it will be easy to merge six large and complex organizations into one which is going to have 550,000 residents, more than 10,000 employees and the job of providing all the services which the existing councils provide at the moment is not being very realistic.

“That is going to be a very big organisation and some people have real and realistic concerns about how responsive it will be to customer demand and how accountable to tax payers and indeed how much will really change. They question whether one organisation can meet efficiently the different needs of the very different communities within the county. They believe a smaller, more local organisation would be more responsive, more accountable and better able to focus on the particular needs of its community.

“These are valid concerns and if we find they are widely shared then other options will have to be considered and we should keep scanning the horizon for these whilst not diverting from the main effort.”

Council leader Rachel Millward said the council was “committed to proactively pursuing more conversations within and beyond East Sussex” to identify these alternative options.

She said: “I know for some this might feel frustrating, like a continuation of uncertainty unnecessarily. But our public services, our children’s and grandchildren’s public services, are at stake. What could be more important?”

Cllr Alison Arthur (Lib Dem) said the government was moving ahead “far too quickly.”

Cllr Arthur also levelled criticism at East Sussex County Council for requesting its elections — due to have taken place in May — be ‘delayed’ in order to allow work on devolution and reorganisation. The government decision to delay the election, which critics say amounts to a full cancellation, will be the subject of House of Lords debate later this month.

However, Cllr Ann Newton, leader of the council’s Conservative group, said: “At the end of the day, regardless of any political colour, we need to get on. We need to get on with each other to move this forward for the best of our residents. We can all do some political popping and poking, but it doesn’t do anybody any good.

“The county council elections were cancelled. To be honest, I didn’t even really think about politics. For me it is a total waste of money to hold those elections, which council tax payers pay, whichever party had been in power.”