Unitary Council
5 August 2007
It was not a surprise to most district councillors that the government approved the County Council’s bid for a Unitary Council. It does, whoever, make a mockery of the statement that the intention is to improve democracy in the county when around 9 in 10 residents voted against it.
I am frequently asked what will this actually mean for Hayle and Penwith. My answer is that I don’t have much of an idea. Hayle Town Council had two meetings with county officers before the decision was made. They got a tough reception the first time when they were unable to answer specific questions related to how planning would work and what powers would be devolved to town councils. When they returned, three months later, we asked the same questions – and they still did not know! The council voted not to support the County’s bid. One councillor said that he had supported the idea before the presentation and opposed it afterwards!
As I understand it, planning will be managed in four areas instead of in the six districts as now. It is hard to see how this will save much money and will probably cost a bit in reconfiguration. Penwith District Council planning officers are already running flat out and many Planning Committee meetings run after 11pm and occasionally to midnight. The new system will make things worse, not better.
Local delivery of services will be through Community Network Areas and it was initially proposed that Hayle and St. Ives would form a CNA. We pointed out to the county officers that we have just spent 5 years preparing a Hayle Area Plan which encompasses Hayle, St. Erth and Gwinear/Gwithian and would it not make more sense for that to be a CNA? Surely St. Ives should be linked with Zennor?
The CNAs themselves will have a staff and local office and there would be a total of 64 in the county. There would be a total of 82 unitary councillors and there would be 2 for Hayle. This replaces the 2 county councillors and 6 district councillors that currently represent Hayle. It is hard to see how this is an improvement in democracy.
The county bid says that town and parish council will take on more powers – but they do not specify these or discuss how they could be implemented. There was mention of some of the simpler planning cases being devolved to town council, but this would mean providing trained staff to assist with this highly technical process which has expensive legal consequences if mishandled.
We will, no doubt, find out more as time passes. The time scale is that shadow elections to the Unitary Council will take place in May 2008 and then the Unitary Council will take over from the County Council in May 2009.
I’ll post information on my web site as I receive it.
No comments yet
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.