Woking Debate: Local Government Re-organisation

Ann-Marie Barker, leader of the Council and of the local Liberal Democrats opened the discussion. She has been very involved in the discussions on the reorganisation, and we were very pleased to have her here to explain the details very clearly.

The Government issued a White Paper in December 2024 that was sent to all Councils giving its plans for the reorganisation of local Councils with a view to creating unitary councils and abolishing councils such as Surrey where powers are split between the boroughs and County. In

January 2025 the Government asked for names of Councils that wanted to be fast tracked in this route. Surrey chose to go down this route and initial proposals were required by March, so these have already gone in. Full proposals are due in May and the Government will make the decision by autumn 2025. Elections for the new Councils will be held in May 2026, and they will take office in May 2027. Before then the Councils will be involved in arranging a smooth handover between the Councils. Surrey will be divided into two or three unitary Councils. Surrey County Council is in favour of creating two unitary Councils, the boroughs are mostly in favour of creating three unitary Councils.

The Government wants to create an elected Mayor for Surrey with strategic powers.

Surrey is on a fast track because of its debt, which is over £5 billion in all. Of this Spelthorne has a debt of £1 billion and Woking a debt of £2.1 billion. This presents a huge problem for the reorganisation. Boroughs with little or no debt do not want to take on this debt and maybe be forced to sell off their assets, but they could resist this by challenging such an action in the courts.

The positives of this reorganisation are that it will end the confusion of whether a service is the responsibility of the Borough or the County as all the services will be delivered by the one authority and there should be cost savings with fewer duplication of posts throughout Surrey.

The negatives are the lessening of democratic representation. At present 37 councillors represent the people of Woking in the Council. In the new structure Woking will have 21 or 14 councillors, a possible rise from 2,800 people per councillor to 7,400 people per councillor. Council offices will be more remote. The speed of the reorganisation is too fast. Present arrangements between the boroughs might have to be discontinued and new arrangements made. For example, Woking shares the refuse collection with three other boroughs. In the new restructuring it is likely that two of these boroughs will go into a different authority to Woking.

Steve Dorsett, an ex Conservative councillor for Woking followed. He is on the Conservative list to stand for Parliament at the next election. Labour has said they want to devolve power to unitary authorities, and he believes this to be the right decision. Reducing the number of Councils in Surrey will reduce duplication and create savings. By being fast tracked Surrey can help influence the process. He does however believe we should continue to hold elections this year. Surrey County Council has asked for them to be held over until new unitary councils are voted for in 2926. Although there will be an extra cost to this democracy is more important. On the choice between two or three authorities he felt most people will not notice the difference between the two choices. The Government wants to create unitary authorities with over 500,000 people in them and Surrey has a population of 1.2 million. He emphasised that populations of other boroughs will not want to sell their assets to pay for Woking’s debts.

Tahir Aziz has been working on the Labour response to the Government white paper. Having elections in 2025 will cost £27,000. Surrey County Council was formed in 1889 and in

Surrey there are over 1,000 elected councillors. Labour favours the creation of three unitary councils with 400,000 people creating them by bringing boroughs together and keeping the present populations in each borough together in larger authorities. He suggested that the Labour government might wipe Woking’s debt.

Paul Hoekstra for the Greens emphasised this was a once in a generation change with a very fast timetable. It is important to put Boroughs with similar commonalities together, Woking and Guildford and Waverley. Woking’s interest on its debt is £65 million a year while its tax income is £15 million. To carry over this debt will put the unitary authorities into trouble from the start. Having two Councils operating at the same time between the 2026 election and 2027 when the boroughs will be dissolved could create problems.

Questions and comments were now invited.

Whether to have two or three authorities was not important, it was suggested. With a strategic mayor there would still be two levels of government in Surrey. Transport should come under a regional authority bigger than Surrey. The Government is pressing for elected Mayors. Talks have been had about going wider than Surrey, but no other authorities wanted to come in with Surrey.

How to avoid years of chaos? Staff will be distracted if they are working out their notices.

Parish councils. Some boroughs have them, but Woking don’t. Steve Dorsett considered it essential that Woking introduce these as otherwise the unitary authorities will be too remote to the population. These are not a paid role. Byfleet did have them and then abolished them. Community boards are essential to maintain a local community spirit.

Epsom and Ewell could be in Greater London.

Responsibility for the debts lies to some extent with Government for letting it get so out of hand. The Department that supervised the Local Authority expenditure no longer exists. The Government can see there is no way we can clear the debts and will have to wipe out the debt?

Having two unitary authorities will be more efficient with a smaller number of officers.