RK/SJA/Cons/WCC

24 April 2007

The Rt Hon Ruth Kelly
Secretary of State
Department for Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU

Dear Secretary of State,

Unitary Authorities – the Wiltshire Bid

I have written to you earlier to express my profound misgivings about your proposals for a unitary authority for Wiltshire to replace Wiltshire County Council and four District Councils.

There is very strong feeling locally against this. The local newspaper, the Salisbury Journal, in the edition of Thursday April 19th, carried an article headed “Public Shout “No” to Super Authority Idea”. The newspaper carried out a telephone poll in which local people voted 10 to 1 against a unitary authority for Wiltshire.

This is very much in line with the correspondence and comment I am receiving from my constituents.

We are regularly told that Wiltshire County Council has achieved a lot of star ratings. However, that does not accord with local experience when it comes to delivery of services. In most areas of community life for which they are responsible, Wiltshire County Council has a poor record.

For example, in the Adult and Community Services Department we had seen a year of very painful cuts to services involving the closure of day centres and in my constituency the closure (through withdrawal of funding) of facilities for those requiring mental care.

In the Children and Education Department, the teams responsible for fostering and adoption have been up to 40% understaffed. Wiltshire County Council has been actively recruiting in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Spain.

When it comes to highways, the Highway Authority is the subject of frequent criticisms to me about poor maintenance of the road network, unfilled potholes (which are particularly dangerous for motorcycles and cycles) and worn out road markings which present a danger for all motorists. Additionally, we have had serious flooding problems on our highways, for example at Winterbourne Earls and in Mill Road, Salisbury.

A common theme running through all the complaints that come to me (and they come to me and not to the local County Councillor) is the remoteness of the service and the slowness of the response.

As I have argued in earlier correspondence, Wiltshire is a large and disparate county and the empowerment of its citizens cannot be achieved by reducing local accountability in the way that would happen if our local district councils were to be abolished and replaced by a remote unitary authority.

Please take this into account in reaching your decision.

Yours sincerely