‘A shotgun wedding’ - Torridge votes on council shake up at divided meeting

Torridge District Councillors have voted in favour of splitting up the county three ways in the biggest local government shake up in 50 years, but several remained unconvinced by the plans, with one calling it a disaster and a ‘shotgun wedding’.

Councillors were presented with the 4-5-1 option which they were told was the only viable proposal after seven others had been discounted.

It involves Torridge combining with North Devon, Mid Devon, East Devon and Exeter as one authority for Exeter and Northern Devon, a Torbay and Southern Devon authority which takes in the South Hams, Teignbridge and West Devon and Torbay and a stand alone council for Plymouth.

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Under local government reorganisation, the Government will abolish Devon’s existing two tier structure of district and county councils in favour of large unitary authorities which have responsibility for all local services. It wants to simplify the governance structure and save money.

The 4-5-1 model has been favoured by seven district councils across Devon who say it has large enough authorities to be sustainable but small enough to meet the needs of local people.

A business case has been worked up with the help of consultants and now forms a polished document called Reimagining Devon which will be submitted to government this week in time for the deadline for final proposals tomorrow (Friday, November 28).

It predicts this model will save £77million a year but there has been concern over a drastic drop in councillors from 481 to 234 and what it might mean for local democracy.

Ultimately it will be the secretary of state who decides which option for Devon will go forward and there are several on the table, including a four-unitary proposal which would see the two cities of Exeter and Plymouth go it alone, along with Torbay and the rest of Devon banded together.

Torridge Labour councillors David and Annie Brenton were against the 4-5-1 plan, saying that an all-rural authority would better represent the people of Torridge and that including Exeter’s ‘great dynamic city’ would “skew Torridge’s social indicators around education, attainment, age, job prospects and wage levels.”

Cllr David Brenton said the north of the county had always been seen as the ‘poor relation’ of the south and that would continue under this proposal. “It will be a disaster,” he said.

He suggested the council vote for a different option but was told there was only one proposal recommended, based on the fact that it was the most viable.

If they didn’t vote for it, leaders indicated that Torridge would be left out in the cold.

But the councillor compared the situation to a ‘shotgun wedding’.

Cllr Anna Dart described the document as ‘propaganda’ and said the local government reorganisation was ‘just a rearrangement of assets’.

She said: “I don’t believe anything contained in this is in the interests of our residents. “It’s been produced to fit in with a Westminster directive.”

She said whilst she appreciated the huge effort of officers and council leaders over the past year to put it all together, it had “detracted from the hard work we should be doing for our residents and cost us a fortune.”

Cllr Huw Thomas said he could not see how a unitary authority stretching across 80 miles was sensible and said the statements made were ‘aspirations not realistic’.

He called a reduction in district and county councillors in Torridge from over 40 to 15 ‘a huge loss of democracy’ and said it was leaders not councillors who had pushed through this plan.

Council leader Ken James said it was not possible to work up eight business cases in the short space of time the government had given local authorities to come up with final proposals.

“This is the only sensible option based on the facts,” he said, adding that it would be “totally irresponsible to members of our community” if the council chose to take another view now.#

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Cllr Lyndon Piper said he would be supporting it as it was ‘an informed and viable option’ that had, at least, had some input from the council.

Members voted in favour by 19 votes to six, with one abstention.