Residents should not foot the bill for an eleventh-hour change of heart
EHDC has called on the Government to pay back the money councils spent on shelved plans for local government reorganisation.
The council has spent almost £300,000 on the project over a year and a half – only to see it withdrawn last Monday.
That money could have been spent on improving public services in the district. Without proper compensation it will be the residents of East Hampshire that lose out.
Cllr Richard Millard, EHDC Leader, said: “We have spent an eye-watering amount of money pursuing the Government’s pie-in-the-sky programme of local government reorganisation in Hampshire.
“My officers have calculated that £295,000 has been spent over the last 18 months directly on resourcing and commissioning LGR work at EHDC – and that figure does not include staff time diverted to the project from day-to-day duties.
“This is not ‘EHDC money’ that has been lost – it is public money. It belongs to the people of East Hampshire and would otherwise have been dedicated to our district.
“It represents cleaner streets, tougher planning controls, safer environments, newer play parks, slicker customer care and more support for our most vulnerable residents.
“Every pound wasted on LGR is a pound that could have been better spent on providing these services to the residents of East Hampshire. It would be absolutely unacceptable for East Hampshire's taxpayers to foot the bill for this Government’s eleventh-hour change of heart.
“The Government went ahead with an option we warned against but we fully committed to the task and invested time and resources into making it work.
“I believe, the Government has a duty to recompense the people of East Hampshire. Their disastrous decision to foist a failing version of LGR on us - and then bring it to a sudden stop - must not leave the residents of East Hampshire out of pocket.
“I have written to the Government today to ask how they intend to pay us back and when they plan to do it.”
Earlier this year, central Government had announced that four new unitary councils would be created on the Hampshire mainland from April 2028, replacing the 14 current councils serving the area (including East Hampshire District Council).
East Hampshire District Council supported an alternative proposal. These new authorities would have taken over services currently delivered by Hampshire County Council, district and borough councils, and the unitary councils of Southampton and Portsmouth.
East Hampshire was to be split between two new unitary authorities. Horndean, Rowlands Castle and Clanfield were to be included in the South East Hampshire Unitary Authority with the remainder in the Mid Hampshire Unitary Authority.
On Monday 7 September, the Secretary of State, Angela Rayner MP, announced she intends to review the process and the evidence used to reach the decision. Ministers say this follows new legal advice and a desire to ensure the process is ‘robust and legally sound’.