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

Dear Secretary of State

Unitary Authority Bid for Wiltshire

First, let me congratulate you on your appointment to this very important department of Government. You have my very best wishes.

I have been corresponding with your predecessor and her Ministers for some months now to argue the case against a Unitary Authority solution for Wiltshire.

As a former Local Government Minister myself, I know just how complicated these things are. However, the two overriding considerations have always been community cohesion and financial benefit.

It is quite clear that the Wiltshire County Council bid for Unitary Authority status meets neither the community cohesion criterion nor the financial benefit criterion. I am sure that your officials will have explained this to you in very great detail and I will not labour the case here.

Suffice it to say that I am very pleased that you will be bringing a fresh mind to this deeply significant decision and I hope very much that you will come to the same conclusion as the vast majority of my constituents – and constituents right across the county – who understand that there are benefits to unitary status but that that would not be the right way forward for the very diverse communities in Wiltshire. Closer cooperation and partnership is the way forward – not the retreat of democratic accountability and the reversal of empowerment which a Unitary Authority would bring.

Yours sincerely,