County councillors commit to limiting the expansion of Leicester city's boundaries

The government is committed to streamlining the current two-tier system, which will see Leicestershire County Council and district councils – including Melton Borough Council – abolished.

Three proposals had been submitted to bring about the changes – one would involve splitting the county into North and South Leicestershire Councils, another features significantly expanding the boundaries of Leicester City Council and the other would see a single council to cover all of Leicestershire.

The previous Conservative administration at County Hall had thrown its weight behind the latter proposal but it lost control of the authority at May’s local elections and now only has 15 councillors.

Councillors backed the new Reform UK-led administration’s motion at Wednesday’s latest full council meeting, which supports two new unitary authorities – one for Leicestershire and one for Leicester.

Councillors backed it, by a margin of 35 votes to 13. The motion states: “The County Council is having constructive discussions with the City Council and there is joint agreement that the best option for LGR (local government reorganisation) in Leicester and Leicestershire is a two unitary model, one City, one County, that both authorities must be financially sustainable with the capacity to enable strategic land use planning across City and County, providing the optimum structure for devolution of powers, responsibilities and funding.”

The motion also opposes the proposals for north and south councils in Leicestershire alongside a city council because it ‘would lead to a significant risk to the stability of countywide services, particularly social care’.

Splitting the country would also ‘cause unnecessary disaggregation of services leading to cost increases, duplication and reduced economies of scale for upper tier functions such as highways, waste disposal and social care’, the motion adds.

Councillor Deborah Taylor, the former acting leader of the previous Conservative administration, said she was supporting the Reform UK motion but she told the meeting that she did not support the city council getting bigger and she was against dividing Leicestershire into north and south because it would be very detrimental to split up the management of social care in the county.

Belvoir representative, Councillor Bryan Lovegrove, called for Rutland to be included in a new Leicestershire unitary authority but said it should be allowed to retain its ceremonial county status.

He said officers at County Hall were already effectively delivering services across Leicestershire and the county should not be divided.

A motion from Liberal Democrat councillor MIchael Mullaney called on the council to withdraw the bid for a single Leicestershire council and express support instead for the district councils’ proposal for splitting the county into north and south councils.

He told the meeting that a super council covering around 750,000 people would be too big and cited the recent failings of the huge Birmingham City Council.

Councillor Mullaney also said a large unitary authority in Leicestershire would lead to the potential for Leicester City Council to increase its boundaries.