1 week Ago By [email protected] (Claire Harrison)
A watershed moment for Nuneaton and Bedworth council has been confirmed. The council has to decide its future amid government plans to get rid of all two-tier local authorities. Among the current plans on the table are for the council to form part of a Northern authority, with North Warwickshire and Rugby councils, or a Warwickshire authority, with all of the councils in the county.
The Warwickshire one is the less preferred of the two, but the Town Hall is insistent it remains looking at all options. The government wants final plans to be submitted by November of this year. READ MORE: Bizarre Bedworth Facebook forum 'troll' used University of Exeter professor profile READ MORE: Burrito chain reveals new design for former Nuneaton town centre shop Tom Shardlow, the council's chief executive, explained at a cabinet meeting, that they hope to have the preferred option for the local authority by June.
This will then be discussed by cabinet members before a full council meeting, where all councillors can have their say, in July. Then the council will make its preferred case to the government. "We are looking to bring a report to cabinet in June with a council (full) meeting in July," the Town Hall chief executive explained.
"The intention is that we will have the options in place for the council to form a view and recommend options to government at that point. "The statutory deadline is November, by doing it earlier, it will give opportunity for us to engage with other government departments, such as the DfE and health and social care, around the future options." The government wants to axe all two tier authorities, which is the current structure in Warwickshire, and instead have new authorities which serve at least 500,000 people.
This would lead to all borough and district councils being scrapped. This poses the biggest change in local government locally since 1972, following the merger of Bedworth Urban District and Nuneaton Metropolitan Borough to create the borough council..
