Shropshire Star

Tory candidate puts forward Shropshire council's merger call

A controversial  idea to merge Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council has been thrust into the election campaign in the county.

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Daniel Kawczynski, the Conservative candidate for Shrewsbury and Atcham, has thrown his support behind the idea and called for a referendum to allow the public to make the decision. He claims it could save up to £15 million a year.

But the idea has been dismissed by David Wright, the Labour candidate for Telford, who said it was something the people of Telford did not want.

Mr Kawczynski, who made the claim yesterday at a hustings event in Shrewsbury, said he accepted his idea is not "universally popular". He said: "We should have a referendum over merging Telford & Wrekin and Shropshire councils. We are one county and we should have one council."

But Mr Wright said: "This has been debated many times. The unitary authority in Telford & Wrekin was created many years ago and I do not think people in Telford want to see a merger with Shropshire – and I think a referendum on that issue would be extremely expensive."

Mr Wright said that the proposal is "not something people have ever raised with me" and added: "I do not think people in Telford want a merger with the rest of Shropshire. We have a really good local authority here and we want to retain it. Our council representatives do an extremely good job."

Mark Pritchard, a party colleague of Mr Kawczynski, who is seeking re-election for The Wrekin constituency, said he did not believe people were interested in the issue.

He said: "This is not something that has come up on the doorstep. My priority is safeguarding jobs at Defence Support Group MoD Donnington and extending the HMRC contract at CapGemini, not focusing on the reconfiguration of local authority boundaries."

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