Twelve Hampshire and Isle of Wight councils announce plans to engage on options for Local Government Reorganisation

A group of 12 of the 15 councils in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, including Southampton City Council, is working together to develop proposals for new councils that aim to improve local services while also offering better value for money

The government wants to change the current council structure that is used in most of the county, where residents have services delivered by both Hampshire County Council and their district or borough councils, to a simpler structure where services are provided by only one council, known as a unitary authority. Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight are already unitary authorities that provide all local services.

To achieve this goal, the government has asked councils to propose how they could join their areas together to form new councils that would each be responsible for all local services in that area. In response, Southampton City Council and the other 11 councils have been working in partnership to develop options that would work best for their residents, businesses and communities.

The other councils are Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Eastleigh Borough Council, Fareham Borough Council, Hart District Council, Havant Borough Council, Isle of Wight Council, New Forest District Council, Portsmouth City Council, Rushmoor Borough Council, Test Valley Borough Council and Winchester City Council.

Based on the evidenced gathered to date, we believe that the Isle of Wight should remain unchanged as its own unitary authority and that the current 14 councils on the mainland should be replaced with four new unitary councils.

In this new structure, there would be five unitary authorities delivering all services in the areas they cover, and we believe this would give the best balance of preserving local decision-making and maintaining a sustainable size for our overall population of over two million people.

We do not think options for fewer unitary councils, which would mean some of them serving well over one million residents, could achieve this balance and would risk losing those vital local connections.

The councils believe this proposal for five unitary authorities means the best of both worlds: councils that are big enough to deliver services strategically, and on a scale that would enable savings, but with local understanding of communities so services can be tailored to their needs.

The next stage in developing the options will be understanding how residents, businesses and community groups feel about the different changes and where they think their area should fit.

Engagement, through a feedback survey, has been launched across the council areas today to gather views which will help us to understand what matters most to people and to shape the preferred option that we will submit to government on how local councils work in our future – so they reflect our places, local identity and culture, and the priorities of real people.

Councillor Lorna Fielker, Leader of Southampton City Council, said: “We are all looking forward to hearing what residents across Southampton, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will have to say about what makes their communities so special and encourage everyone to fill in the survey to give us the best evidence base to then support our case on reorganisation in discussions with the government.”