COLUMN - Melton & Syston MP, Edward Argar

In a statement to the House of Commons Angela Rayner said that the plans for changes to local government in Leicestershire, Leicestershire and Rutland, as well as across swathes of England, were being paused and reviewed in the light of legal advice she'd received.

While this highlights utter chaos at the heart of government policy and sadly leaves many local councils like ours, who were told the previous decision in July was final, having spent a fortune of your and my Council Tax preparing for something that is now uncertain, there is at least one positive, which is that the massive expansion of Leicester city's boundaries they had planned is now on hold.

I have fought the government's Leicester city 'land-grab' from day one, so it's announcement that it is pausing and reviewing LGR, and pausing the 'land-grab' of communities like Syston, Queniborough, Thurmaston, Barkby, Barkby Thorpe, Beeby, and Thorpebury, in our area by the city is welcome news, and is also good news for Melton and the villages.

Because even though Melton borough was not caught up in the land-grab, the taking into the city of these huge areas on its boundary would, as I have previously written in the Melton Times, have left those areas like Melton in the new county authority having to make up a huge gap in council finances, which would ultimately have fallen on local Council Tax payers.

Whatever view anyone takes on the pros or cons of scrapping two levels of local government and switching to just one, as the government planned, the government has this week shown itself to be in utter chaos over what it plans to do.

On the city land-grab it may finally be listening to local MPs like me, local councillors, and local people, who've been united from day one to fight this 'land-grab' and been clear it is unwanted and unnecessary.

I will be pressing the government to get a grip and give our local councils certainty about what the future holds so that rather than focussing on internal reorganisations, they can be focussed on what really matters - the important services they provide to you and me, and that we pay for through our Council Tax.

Finally, although politics can, as above, often be about opposing and arguing with other parties, and rightly holding them to account, I do want to thank county councillor Adam Tilbury, Reform UK's cabinet member for environment and waste at County Hall for listening to my campaign and calls for Bottesford Waste and Recycling Site to be reopened, and doing as I asked.

It is a real shame it was temporarily closed in the first place, and it is important LCC reopen it on Saturdays as well and learn from this summer's problems to have robust contingency plans in place to keep it open if future challenges occur.