21/01/2025
This will be a disaster.
In all the time I’ve lived in the UK I’ve always been based in Gloucestershire - and that isn’t going to change.
This is, with all our faults, one of the best places on earth to live: and despite occasional efforts by different governments to tinker with local government boundaries the county of Gloucestershire is deep in our DNA.
So this is a wake up call for everyone - because some politicians are working to get rid of all your local councils - including the c1,500 year old Gloucester City Council and Gloucestershire County Council and create instead two new authorities: West Gloucestershire and East Gloucestershire.
These changes would affect us all, and especially those who most need good local government services.
Here’s the detail and I’ll try to keep it short:
The government plan is to abolish all second tier councils (ie Gloucester City, Cheltenham Borough & all 4 District Councils in the county), and just have a single council (unitary authority ie the county council expanded) responsible for all local government services in Gloucestershire.
We could discuss the pros and cons - personally I have serious reservations - although I also understand the usual case made for this type of structural change (economies of scale, less bureaucracy, lower cost, faster decision making), even if sceptical about the reality.
And this is coming whether we like it or not - with the majority they have the new government cannot lose the vote.
So understandably the county council is trying to get the best deal they can, which is almost certainly from trying to get early mover advantage and do it quick. Let’s see if that works.
But meanwhile 5 out of 7 of the county’s MPs (ie all the Labour MPs, two of the three LDs and not the remaining Conservative) have written to the local government minister suggesting something which, if accepted by government, would be - let’s not beat about the bush - a disaster.
They want to divide the county into two unitary slices:
‘West Gloucestershire’ (once a name for the Forest of Dean constituency) would be the Forest, Stroud and Gloucester or the ‘poor’ part of the county;
‘East Gloucestershire’ would be Cheltenham, Cotswolds and Tewkesbury districts or the ‘rich’ part.
Just think this through. Instead of one fire & rescue service there would be two: instead of one adult service and one children’s service, two of each. Not one transport authority to sort out potholes and plan road infrastructure improvements across the county, but two. Ditto two Local Education Authorities. And instead of one Chief Exec and Leader for the county, two of each.
Imagine the amount of time discussing eg whether a road will only be repaired or litter picked up within the boundary of East or West Gloucestershire or across both..
So this would be an increase of bureaucracy, not a reduction: an increase both of cost (just think of the rebranding alone) and of distraction to the work local government should be doing for the people of our single county in splitting a single service and creating two instead.
And when a flood comes - which, guess what, tends not to distinguish between local government boundaries will not limit itself to ‘West’ and fire and rescue / police services are divided artificially along Sandhurst Lane - who will talk for the whole county and oversee a single response? Will an East Glos appliance stop at the Tewkesbury border with Gloucester rather than help a flooded home ten yards away?
Nor is this nonsense limited to crises. If you live in Longlevens, a mile from Gloucester City centre, you are in Gloucester City at the moment, but you vote for an MP for Tewkesbury. That is already odd. In the future, though, your council won’t be Gloucester City, because that won’t exist: you’ll be in East Gloucestershire - although you live still only a mile from Shire Hall, no doubt the head office for ‘West Gloucestershire’ Council.
Meanwhile I’ve never met anyone who thought they live in East Gloucestershire, especially around Cirencester which is in the south of Gloucestershire, and for all those in villages in Stroud District who recently voted for an MP in the Cotswolds, well you’d be in West Gloucestershire while the Cotswolds will be in East Gloucestershire.
Puzzled or not happy? Tough, if this quintet get their way.
What about Gloucestershire sports teams? Will they all be split in two? Will our University become the University of West and East Gloucestershire and GlosCol become West&EastGlosCol?
And what happen to our Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust, with a hospital in both ‘East’ and ‘West’? Split them? Oblige them to negotiate with social services in two authorities? How will either improve productivity or serve patients better?
I cannot see any research done or any consideration given to the interests of residents.
So all five MPs who signed this letter should be thoroughly ashamed.
Their claim that creating West and East Gloucestershire “would ensure the county receives the considerable benefits of devolution..whilst retaining councils that work for and make sense for local people” is precisely the opposite of the truth.
West and East Gloucestershire do not exist, so they would be created not ‘retained’: BBC Gloucestershiree sense to local people at all.
The only people who will be in favour of this are the MPs’ own political parties.
Why? Because Labour Party officials will be thinking “we can control ‘West Gloucestershire’” and the Lib Dems will be thinking “we can control ‘East Gloucestershire’”. That looks like putting party before people, self before service.
If the MPs were confident that creating two unitary authorities (by the way a contradiction in terms: unitary means ‘a single or uniform entity’, not two entities) would have public support, they should call for a local referendum and put it to a vote.
I am absolutely confident that they won’t do so because up with this the residents of Gloucestershire would not put.
Instead they hope the Local Government Minister will nod through an exception to his own rule thBBC Gloucestershirea unitary should have a minimum of 500,000 residents and carve up Gloucestershire into two.
The only credit in this shoddy affair goes to the new LD MP for Tewkesbury, who has not signed it (despite, no doubt, pressure from colleagues) and the remaining Conservative Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who would never support it.
His work on working with the (single) Gloucestershire County Council on resolving the A417 Missing Link is a key practical ePunchline GloucestertGloucestershire LivesBBC Gloucestershireainly unhelpful.
What to do? I am convinced that chopping our county into two would be a disaster. And because we can’t just assume that common sense will win, I’m asking for your support - not for me but for Gloucestershire - to try and see this proposal off.
So please get on your keyboard or dig out your pens and write with your views to your mp / the authors of the letter as soon as possible.
Their names are on the letter below and their e mail addresses all have the same format: first [email protected]
Do if you can copy your newspaper, local fb page, online forums - and think about linking your view to how you vote in local (county) elections - which I suspect will go ahead here in May. How you might vote will help focus minds..
Thank you! 🙏🏻
Punchline Gloucester
Gloucestershire Live
BBC Gloucestershire
Carmelo Garcia
