The leader of South Holland District Council thinks the authority’s days are numbered, but hopes the government will allow it to become a unitary authority with its current partner councils.
The devolution plan for Lincolnshire has started the process of going through Parliament and will create a new single tier of local government.
Currently in South Holland, Lincolnshire County Council oversees services such as highways and adult social care, while the district council provides more local services such as bin collections and running leisure facilities.
Coun Worth (pictured) told a recent meeting of the district council that he thinks planned local government reform will leave only ‘unitary’ authorities.
“There are a lot of rumours but it seems clear the Labour government sees unitary authorities as a priority,” he said.
“I think they see mayoral councils, with county councils, district councils and parish councils as being too much.
“It’s hard to argue about that, and they’ve only got a finite amount of money.
“If I were a betting man, I would say district councils probably won’t be around a massive amount longer. It’s a shame.”
South Holland District Council formed The South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership with East Lindsey and Boston in response to Lincolnshire County Council’s drive for devolution.
Coun Worth says he hopes the partnership would be considered to become a new unitary authority in is own right.
“We will know when the devolution deal goes through Parliament.”
The district council voted in favour of appointing Coun Worth as its representative on the new authority. Not all district councils are guaranteed a seat, only four seats have been allocated for the seven such authorities.
South Holland District Council hopes Coun Worth will be one of those four.
“If we don’t do this we won’t have any representation on the combined authority,” he warned.
“Being such a big county it’s important we’re well represented in the south of the county.”
- Candidates for the role of Mayor of Lincolnshire are (so far) former MP Andrea Jenkyns (Reform UK), Jason Stockwood (Labour) and Rob Waltham (Conservative).
The elected mayor will serve as a direct link between the unitary authority (Lincolnshire) and Westminster.
The county’s Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Jones withdrew from the race in ahead of the contest to secure nomination which was held on Saturday evening in Lincoln.
He said he wanted to ‘focus on addressing funding and efficiency issues at Lincolnshire Police.’
Neighbouring Cambridgeshire is likely to combine with Peterborough to form one authority.
The government is apparently looking ‘more regionally’ in East Anglia, and Norfolk and Suffolk could be merged into one larger authority to serve both counties.
