Leaders split on shake-up
Friday 27th October 2006, 1:51PM BST.
The Government announced yesterday that all shire areas will be asked if they want to to become unitary authorities, which would sound the death knell for English district councils.
In Shropshire it would mean the county council, Shrewsbury & Atcham and Oswestry borough councils and Bridgnorth, North Shropshire and South Shropshire district councils being swallowed up by a single all-powerful authority – like Telford & Wrekin.
Leader of Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council Councillor Peter Nutting said: “I have some reservations about the size of any unitary authority but I will outline my initial views in greater detail as part of my address at the Shrewsbury Conference on Monday.”
Councillor David G Lloyd, leader of Oswestry Borough Council, said: “I believe a move to a unitary authority will provide significant savings.”
Councillor Heather Kidd, leader of South Shropshire District Council, said: “If we are going to have to share services anyway we might as well become a unitary authority and create something special for Shropshire.”
But Councillor Elizabeth Yeomans, Leader of Bridgnorth District Council, said: “It would be foolhardy to take such a decision prior to the publication of Sir Michael Lyons’s review of local government finance.
North Shropshire District Council leader David Minnery said the authority did not yet have an official view.
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