08/09/2026
Please find below a statement from Reform UK West Surrey regarding the Government’s decision to review the Local Government Reorganisation programme while excluding Surrey from that process.
REFORM UK WEST SURREY STATEMENT – LOCAL GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION
The Government’s decision to pause and review Local Government Reorganisation across significant parts of England raises serious questions about why Surrey residents are being denied the same opportunity for scrutiny.
On 7 September, the Government announced a review of the Local Government Reorganisation programme. Decisions affecting Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk have been withdrawn, while the wider programme is being reconsidered.
Yet East and West Surrey have specifically been excluded because the new authorities have already been established in law.
For Reform UK West Surrey, that does not answer the fundamental question.
If the Government now believes it is necessary to satisfy itself that the process is robust, complies with the law and reflects its priorities, why should Surrey residents not receive the same reassurance?
Surrey was pushed through this process ahead of much of the country. Being further down the legal road should not mean legitimate concerns about the decisions taken here simply disappear.
The Government’s own consultation results demonstrate why those questions matter.
The statutory consultation received 5,617 responses. The Government’s published results showed that the two-unitary proposal ultimately selected averaged just 19% positive responses compared with 56% negative responses.
By contrast, the three-unitary alternative averaged 51% positive responses and 29% negative responses.
The Government itself acknowledged that the consultation demonstrated a clear preference among residents for the three-unitary proposal.
Yet the two-unitary model was chosen.
A consultation is not a referendum and Government must of course consider financial sustainability, service delivery and other evidence. But when residents demonstrate such a clear preference, they are entitled to ask how much weight their views were actually given.
There must also be scrutiny of the political decisions that led Surrey to this point.
Labour cannot carry the responsibility alone.
The Conservative administration at Surrey County Council strongly promoted the two-unitary model which was ultimately selected by the Labour Government.
Instead of robustly challenging Labour’s approach and demanding that the model with greater public support be properly considered, Surrey Conservatives and Labour ministers ultimately found themselves aligned behind the same two-unitary outcome.
Reform UK did not support that approach.
Residents are entitled to ask why the political establishment was so determined to proceed with two enormous authorities when the Government’s own consultation demonstrated considerably stronger public support for three.
This is precisely why Reform believes Surrey should now receive the same degree of scrutiny being applied to Local Government Reorganisation elsewhere.
Reform UK is not opposed to making local government more efficient, nor are we arguing that the existing system was perfect.
Our concern is that bigger does not automatically mean better.
West Surrey will combine Guildford, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Waverley and Woking into one enormous authority. We must ensure that residents in our towns and villages do not find decision-making becoming more remote and their local identities and voices becoming weaker.
There is also a major financial issue which must be resolved.
West Surrey will bring together councils with significantly different financial positions, including Woking Borough Council and its exceptional historic debt.
The Government has already recognised the seriousness of Woking’s position, including an in-principle commitment to repay £500 million of Woking’s debt as a first tranche of debt repayment support, alongside further Exceptional Financial Support.
Reform UK West Surrey welcomes recognition that this requires exceptional treatment, but we want an unequivocal guarantee that residents elsewhere in West Surrey will not be expected to shoulder unsustainable legacy liabilities created by historic decisions over which they had absolutely no control.
A resident in Runnymede, Guildford, Waverley or Surrey Heath should not suddenly find themselves responsible for exceptional financial failures elsewhere simply because Whitehall has drawn a new boundary around them.
That could ultimately mean pressure on council tax, frontline services, borrowing or public assets. We want those risks dealt with before the new authority assumes full responsibility.
We therefore believe the Government must provide a fair settlement for exceptional and unsustainable legacy debt rather than simply transferring that risk to the new authority and its taxpayers.
We also believe Government now needs to address another contradiction – the creation or expansion of Parish and Town Councils.
One of the principal arguments for Local Government Reorganisation has been simplification: removing tiers of government, reducing duplication and creating larger authorities capable of delivering services more efficiently.
If the Government genuinely believes that two large unitary councils are the right model for Surrey, it should intervene now and examine plans that could result in a further layer of Parish and Town Councils being created beneath them.
There is a danger that we abolish borough and district councils in the name of simplification, only then to recreate another layer of local government through new Parish and Town Councils – with additional councillors, administration, governance structures and potentially additional precepts for residents.
That risks adding complexity back into the very system we have just spent significant sums reorganising to simplify.
Reform UK supports genuine localism and strong community representation. But localism does not automatically require creating another council, another bureaucracy and another precept.
Before new Parish or Town Councils are established, Government should require a clear demonstration that they are necessary, represent value for money and have genuine public support.
There are other ways of strengthening local representation within West Surrey. That should include examining whether residents could be represented by more ward councillors within the new authority, giving communities greater access to elected representatives without necessarily creating an entirely separate tier of councils and administration.
If the two-unitary model is genuinely the right answer for Surrey, Government should explain why another tier of local government needs to be recreated almost immediately underneath it.
There is also the question of the cost and disruption of transition.
Councils are currently undertaking one of the biggest reorganisations of public services Surrey has experienced in generations. Staff, services, contracts, assets, liabilities, IT systems and governance arrangements all have to be brought together while existing councils continue providing the services residents rely upon.
Residents are understandably less interested in organisational charts than they are in whether their bins are collected, roads are maintained, planning applications are dealt with properly, vulnerable people receive support and somebody remains locally accountable when things go wrong.
That must be the test of this reorganisation.
Reform UK West Surrey is therefore calling on Government to take four actions:
1. Provide a clear public explanation of why the concerns now considered sufficiently serious to justify reviewing Local Government Reorganisation elsewhere require no equivalent reconsideration or additional assurance for Surrey.
2. Provide a firm and transparent settlement for exceptional legacy debt so taxpayers across the new West Surrey authority are protected from historic financial failures they did not create.
3. Publish clear and publicly measurable benchmarks showing residents whether Local Government Reorganisation actually delivers the promised savings, better services, value for money and strong local democratic accountability.
4. Intervene early to examine proposals for additional Parish and Town Councils before Surrey inadvertently replaces the borough and district tier it is abolishing with another layer of councils, administration and additional taxation.
The Government says Surrey cannot be included in the review because East and West Surrey have already been established in law.
Our response is simple:
Being first through the door should not mean Surrey receives less scrutiny than everybody coming behind us.
And if Labour and Surrey Conservatives remain convinced that two large unitary councils are the right model, they should be prepared to demonstrate why – particularly when the Government’s own consultation showed considerably stronger support for the three-unitary alternative.
Surrey residents deserve to know that this once-in-a-generation change is being undertaken for their benefit, rather than simply because the process has progressed too far for Government to reconsider it.
Reform UK will work constructively to make West Surrey succeed. We have been elected to represent residents within the new authority and we take that responsibility extremely seriously.
But working to make the new council successful does not mean remaining silent about the decisions that created it or failing to challenge either Labour Government or the previous Conservative leadership in Surrey when taxpayers and local democracy need protecting.
Our test remains straightforward:
Will residents receive better services?
Will taxpayers receive better value for money?
Will our towns and villages retain a meaningful local voice?
Will residents be protected from exceptional legacy debt?
And are we genuinely simplifying local government, rather than abolishing one tier only to recreate another?
If the Government believes its model for Surrey is the right one, it should have no difficulty answering those questions and demonstrating it to the people of Surrey.
Kind regards,
Cllr Carl Mann - Deputy Leader
On behalf of Reform UK West Surrey
