The government intends to reorganise local government and abolish Surrey’s 11 district and borough councils including Tandridge. It proposes to replace them, and Surrey County Council, with a unitary system. That means all local services will be delivered by the same council instead of the current two-tier system where services are split between the district and the county council. There will also be a Mayoral Strategic Authority.
Surrey’s council leaders were given an extremely fast time scale in which to submit proposals for reorganisation - the fastest of anywhere. On 5 February this year, they were told to submit interim plans by 21 March with final plans submitted by last Friday.
The reason for that fast tracking is the huge and extraordinary amount of debt in Surrey. All the high levels of debt are in councils in the west/north of the county. Bankrupt Woking alone has £2.7 billion of which about £2 billion is “stranded” or irrecoverable. The concern is that the government will not write off this stranded debt and will spread it across the new unitaries which will affect Tandridge residents despite the debt being nothing to do with us.
It’s not yet clear how many unitary councils will replace the 12 existing councils. There could be two or three separate unitaries. We could even end up with a single monster Surrey unitary authority which would cover an area with a population of 1.2 million.
On 9 May, nine of the eleven districts and boroughs, including Tandridge, submitted a proposal for three unitaries. Surrey County Council and two of the districts and boroughs submitted a proposal for two unitaries. Neighbouring Reigate and Banstead Borough Council submitted a proposal to form a unitary with Crawley Borough Council.
On 6 May, Tandridge District councillors from all groups made these decisions:
1. To endorse the submission to the government of the proposal for three unitary authorities within the boundary of Surrey rather than the two proposed by Surrey County Council.
2. To endorse the principle that each division in the newly formed unitary authorities within the Surrey boundary has three councillors rather than the two proposed by Surrey County Council.
3. Given the references to Tandridge District Council in the joint submission for a unitary by Reigate and Banstead and Crawley Borough Councils, this Council formally makes clear that it strongly opposes being part of any unitary arrangements which include Crawley Borough Council.
4. To confirm that this Council considers it is not appropriate to expect the residents of Tandridge District to contribute to the resolution of the debt problems of other local authorities within Surrey.
For more details click here
