Arundel and South Downs MP, Andrew Griffith, has warned that yet another government consultation on local government reorganisation in West Sussex is the wrong step at the wrong time. He has slammed the Local Government & Communities Minister for today announcing a consultation on an option that ‘not a single council had proposed’.
Following last week’s local elections, Andrew Griffith has already called on all West Sussex County Councillors to resist any notion of carving West Sussex up into separate administrations.
West Sussex County Council had proposed one single unitary authority across the whole of the West Sussex area, to combine the county council with all of the district and borough councils.
The district and borough councils themselves – comprising Arun, Adur, Chichester, Crawley, Horsham, Mid-Sussex and Worthing – proposed for the county’s administration to be split into two, joining Adur, Arun, Chichester and Worthing to form one council, and Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex to form another. This, Andrew Griffith has repeatedly warned, would split the county’s administration and create “two town halls, two sets of expensive officers, two fragmented school catchment areas and years of disruption to services”.
Steve Reed, the Local Government and Communities Minister, announced in March that he had considered the two proposals but then proposed modifications of his own to create a coastal unitary authority made up of Arun, Adur and Worthing, and a second unitary authority to combine Chichester, Crawley, Horsham and Mid Sussex.
Andrew Griffith said:
“This is becoming farcical. This deeply flawed undemocratic process should be kicked into the long grass. With so much uncertainty hanging over the Government right now, the case for local government needs to be reconsidered entirely.”
To see the consultation and details of how to respond, please go to https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/modified-proposals-for-local-government-reorganisation-in-west-sussex. The consultation closes on 23:59 on Monday 15 June.
