Hampshire County Council has today underlined its clear commitment to residents to ensure that councils delivering services to the people of Hampshire and the Solent region in future will be simpler, stronger and secure – providing communities with high-quality services while delivering the best value for the taxpayer.

Under national plans for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), central Government wants to replace Hampshire County Council, 11 district and borough councils across the county, plus the unitary councils of Southampton, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight, with a number of unitary local authorities, all delivering the same public services as they do now to help make councils more efficient and effective. All 15 local authorities in the region have been tasked to come up with proposals for how councils should be reorganised from 2028 onwards, evidenced against various criteria. They will then be submitted to central Government this autumn for a final decision.

Leader of Hampshire County Council, Councillor Nick Adams-King said: “Government has recently provided us with helpful feedback on the interim LGR proposals we collectively submitted earlier this year with our local authority partners across Hampshire and the Solent. Westminster has recognised that councils will have differing views on how new unitary councils should be configured in future, which is understandable as each council Leader will have different responsibilities to their residents. Therefore, recognising that multiple proposals may be submitted for our collective geography, Government has asked that we keep working collaboratively using shared data so we’re all working from the same foundations, but that we use our individual voice where it is required.

“As council Leaders, we all have an individual and collective responsibility to determine the most effective and sustainable format for local government that will deliver the greatest benefit to our people and local communities. The County Council’s duty is to its 1.4 million residents to whom we deliver 85% of the council services people receive across the Hampshire and Solent region. Our services lie at the heart of local communities, they are delivered at every stage of people’s lives and deliver a lifeline to those most in need. I care deeply that these public services in future are of the best quality possible and are delivered by strong and financially sustainable unitary councils that are equipped to successfully withstand the major budget pressures that will continue to be felt across many parts of local government. This is the lens through which we now focus our dedicated LGR work so that we can be assured an effective plan will be in place for local government reorganisation in future.

“We are clear that a robust, evidence-based approach is needed and we remain firmly committed to collaborating and sharing data with all our local authority partners, and wider stakeholders, throughout the LGR process, but we will now be progressing our own work to develop a proposed model for local government which prioritises the best interests of residents, across their local communities, while seeking to secure a financially strong future for the large-scale services the County Council delivers.

“We will continue to look objectively at every possible option for how councils could be configured and we will use solid evidence to do so – taking into account financial and non-financial factors equally alongside residents’ and partners’ views – to help shape the basis of our recommendation to central Government later this year on our preferred number and size of councils needed to serve the residents of Hampshire and the Solent in future.

“We owe it to the people of Hampshire to do the best job possible. We will continue to openly share our work with our local authority partners as it progresses so we can all better understand the pressures and challenges of our services and then present the most effective model of local government which can endure for decades ahead. When we look back in future years, we will be certain that we’ve done everything in our power to secure the greatest benefits for residents through the provision of simpler, stronger and secure councils for Hampshire and the Solent’s generations to come.”