Reform starts legal move against new councils plan

Essex County Council's newly elected Reform UK group has started legal proceedings to try stopping local government reorganisation (LGR).

Peter Harris, Reform's leader-elect at County Hall, said the council was seeking a judicial review over central government's plans for the biggest reshape of councils in 50 years.

Harris said the proposals were "ill-thought, expensive, purely ideological in nature and seek to create further democratic distance between the people of Essex and their elected local politicians".

Daniel Cowan, Labour leader of Southend-on-Sea City Council, said it "would be a huge waste of public money because at this point you can only legally challenge the process".

Cowan, who co-authored a five-council plan for Essex, said the reform of local authorities was "about local people, local power, local control".

The Labour government wants to replace two-tier council set-ups with all-purpose unitary authorities, like those created in Southend and Thurrock last century.

Harris wrote to the secretary of state for local government about his intentions last week.

He told the BBC he had asked to meet Steve Reed urgently "to avoid time and expense of litigation".

Reform won control of the county council in the 7 May local elections, securing 53 out of 78 seats and ousting the Conservatives, who had been in charge for 25 years.

During the election campaign, the party's national leader, Clacton MP Nigel Farage, said Reform would look again at LGR across the country.

Harris said: "I am pleased to confirm Essex County Council has now initiated legal proceedings against the government."

The government previously said that nearly a third of England's population live in areas with two tiers of local government, with services and functions split across county and district councils.

"This slows down decision making and delivery, leads to fragmented public services, sees money wasted on duplication and makes it unclear who is responsible for what and where accountability lies," it said.

"Our ambition is to simplify local government by ending the two-tier system and establishing new single-tier unitary councils."

In Essex, the county council, district councils and two unitary authorities would be replaced by five new unitary councils.

The government said last week it would respond to Essex County Council's letter "in due course".

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