Keep Norfolk Local
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has announced his decision on local government reorganisation in Norfolk. The decision is to create a unitary council in Norwich City, on the existing boundaries, while the rest of Norfolk remains two tier.
Simply put, we believe the proposals are not right for Norfolk. We consider that the decision demonstrates a real ignorance about the vital economic relationship between the city and the rest of the county – creating this imbalance will tear the heart out of the county, as well creating needless upheaval in local service provision.
The five Keep Norfolk Local councils are working together, as local authorities that understand the area and its complexity to deliver cost reductions without the need for massive upheaval and multi million pound transition costs, with `right sized' shared services, shared officer arrangements and other low cost/high impact changes.
On behalf of the people of Norfolk, we asked the Secretary of State to draw the only sensible conclusion available, and leave the existing structural arrangements for local government in place in Norfolk. That has been ignored and the unitary Norwich City Council has been proposed.
That will mean a reorganisation of Norfolk County Council services to split them between Norwich and the remainder of the County. It is inevitable that this would cost money and impact on services to residents and businesses, at least in the short term, at a time when all of us are finding savings and trying to be as economic and efficient as possible, within a very difficult financial climate.
We will continue to try and persuade the Government through the Parliamentary process that this decision is wrong, and we also intend to work with our County Council colleagues to seek a remedy through the Court.
Latest news
- Keep Norfolk Local councils attack "pig-in-a-poke" Unitary decision (Wednesday 2 February 2010)
- You’ve been ignored! (Wednesday 23 December 2009)
- Local government reorganisation delayed (Tuesday 30 July 2009)
- Update from Secretary of State (Thursday 9 July 2009)
- Our response to the Boundary Committee (Thursday 28 May 2009)
All the five Councils associated with the Keep Norfolk Local Campaign expressly dissociate themselves from any website, search engine or on-line social networking facility that may include or provide links or references to this website.
