He said: “We’re asking the views of the public to say ‘instead of a county council and a district council, would you want just one council to replace both of those?’”
The idea is to scrap the seven district councils and the county council. All eight chief executive and senior management team roles would go as well as hundreds of councillors’ posts.
A unitary approach is a familiar form of local governance with most of the population already under it.
Coun Hill said: “We’re doing it [the referendum] because we keep having these conversations all the time about the difficult financial situations all councils are in and how we’re having to find ways of saving money which means difficult decisions.
“This is a way you can save a good amount of money without affecting frontline services one iota.”
He claimed it would also remove confusion among residents about which tier of council is responsible for which service.
To keep costs down, the referendum will take place in conjunction with county council elections in May.
South Holland District Council leader Gary Porter said his fellow Conservative had “jumped the gun” with Monday’s announcement. Political group leaders have discussed the proposal and were due to talk to their groups. His group’s meeting is not until February 16.
Lord Porter said: “Every group needs to understand what the options could be, we then need to talk to the people of South Holland and then the people need to tell us what they want.
“If we are going to have the conversation we need to inform the public what it means. I’m not bothered if one big council empties the bins but we are the only people in Lincolnshire who have that done on a weekly basis.”
Anna Graves, shared chief executive of South Holland and Breckland district councils, declined to comment.
