The Rt Hon Ruth Kelly
Secretary of
State
Department for Communities and Local Government
Dear Secretary of State
Local Government Reorganisation in Wiltshire
I applaud your initiative to promote new structures for Local Government.
I have been there myself – as a former Minister for Local Government
some time ago. With that experience, and all through my experience
of almost 24 years as Member of Parliament for Salisbury, I
would like to comment on the proposal from Wiltshire County
Council to create one unitary authority based upon Wiltshire County
Council.
I have read carefully your White Paper. I can see many circumstances
under which unitary authorities would work well. However, the
case of Wiltshire is not one of them.
Wiltshire is a very large,
geographically dispersed and a culturally disparate county.
The brutal truth is that the county is made up of all the bits of Wessex
that do not fit comfortably anywhere else. For example, Swindon is – and always
has been since the early years of the railways – an “M4
corridor” community,
looking to London and to Bristol. The market towns of North
West Wiltshire fit culturally with the lowland communities
of Gloucestershire and Somerset. Devizes and Marlborough look naturally
to the east. The communities south of Salisbury Plain (the great divide
in county) have for seven centuries focussed the communities in the
five river valleys on Salisbury – and
Salisbury naturally looks to the south coast communities of
Southampton, Bournemouth and Poole. There is no natural cohesiveness
about the county of Wiltshire. This became very evident during
the last round of Parliamentary constituency boundary changes
where the appeal held at Salisbury heard of farmers in South Wiltshire
who had never been as far north as Warminster!
Thus, in terms of community
cohesiveness, the county of Wiltshire is remote and meaningless
for almost all citizens of the county. What they identify with
is their local communities and the hinterland in which it is naturally
set.
In terms of the financial case for a Wiltshire Unitary
Authority, I was very disappointed by the report presented
by Wiltshire County Council. It was very long on assertion and very
short on fact. Indeed, the facts have been hotly disputed by academics,
accountants and local authority Chief Executives. The case against the
County Council has been explained admirably by the Leaders and Chief
Executives of West Wiltshire District Council, Kennet District Council
and Salisbury District Council. I refer in particular to their letter
to you dated 13th February 2007 – a
copy of which I enclose. I have also read carefully the report
from Professor Chisholm of Cambridge University whose conclusions I
find compelling.
All three of the District Councils which are opposed
to the Wiltshire County option recognise that the status quo
is not an option. Not only do they believe they must move forward – they
are already doing so. They have presented strong evidence to
you of the way in which they are not only achieving good levels of performance
in terms of Customers First Partnerships, Local Area Agreements,
capacity building and joint projects to secure efficiencies by combining
services, joint procurement and partnership with the private sector.
I am convinced that is the right way forward. Looking ahead, I believe
that these natural, evolutionary developments could lead in the future
to the emergence of new local authorities based on coherent, natural
spheres of influence recognised by their local populations who would
thus feel empowered and more in control of their own affairs. The last
thing people want is a remote, centralised authority in a huge county
where they feel under represented and where decisions affecting local
interests will be taken by councillors living over 50 miles away who
have never set foot in the communities where the decisions will make
their impact.
In short, the proposal from Wiltshire County Council for
a single unitary authority for Wiltshire simply will not work.
I urge you to resist it.
Yours sincerely
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