Local Government Reorganisation

Local Government Reorganisation Report to Councils Around Okehampton

PDF of Local Government Reorganisation Meeting Report

I attended the presentation given by WDBC in the Okement Centre on 2^nd September 2025. It was made clear that this wasn’t a consultation as such, and it was stated that the Government had informed Councils that they were not to have public consultations. Moreover, the Government timescales were outlined and that there were only 8 more weeks for the officers to hone up these proposals before final presentation. There is then a programme which could conclude with elections to new Authorities in 2027.  The meeting provided for a presentation of a proposal for a new Unitary Authority and for questions. The latter became a mixture of questions, queries and outright criticism of the proposal.

Much of the presentation is outlined on the WDBC website, but could be described as a justification of the efficiencies that they hope to achieve and some of the benefits. There has clearly been a lot of work put into this, but questions were raised that cast doubt on whether the proposal was the best and only of the options under consideration.

The proposal was for a unitary authority which combines West Devon, South Hams and Torbay. This apparently creates a structure which is close to the Government guidelines for population size 500,000. Moreover, it adheres to the guidelines that there should not be any redrawing of Council boundaries.

The other proposals being presented by DCC, Plymouth City Council and Exeter City Council were mentioned. However, questions confirmed that some of these are not conforming to the guidelines, and West Devon was criticised for so doing. Moreover, the initial proposals from all these blocs have been presented to Government but all of them have been required to work on these with more details. Although there have been some exchanges between the senior staff, it was clear that this has led to political competition and to a lack of collaboration over the emerging models.

In brief:

• DCC propose a county wide Authority of approximately 1 million population
• Exeter proposes combining North, Mid and East Devon with its city.
• Plymouth proposes a Unitary but may wish to include parts of its hinterland

The meeting heard no contributions supporting the WDBC proposal. Specific concerns all related to Okehampton and the north Dartmoor area. These points were raised:

• Culturally there is no commonality between our rurality and Torbay
• Geographically there are no links between these areas, and there are poor communication links, dividing the Authority by the moor.
• Okehampton has always looked to its hinterland in North and Mid Devon, and it rejected the last local government reorganisation proposals creating WDBC. Before this, it had been Okehampton Borough Council in its own right.
• Okehampton now has obvious transport links to Exeter/Mid Devon, and future growth in this area will undoubtedly increase the social and business links
• Housing Developments and growth projections would soon achieve the ‘ideal’ of 500,000 south of the Moor in an Authority not including Okehampton
• The outlined efficiencies could be better achieved, and local decision making/representation improved by splitting Okehampton off to be part of the Exeter plus model
• There has been no similar presentation of the proposals by DCC which would maintain a Devon Authority. There is no clear outline from government as to whether they would consider another Authority the size of Birmingham.
• Many of the public comments referred to the democratic deficiency in the model, with concern that Torbay would have the largest representation as well as much of the social need within a new Authority.
• There was concern about the impact on the lower tier of Parish and Town Councils and any collaboration they could achieve with the proposed Unitary.

Conclusions

With that level of opposition to the WDBC proposal, it is important that this is projected throughout the development of all the proposals. There has not been the opportunity to fully consider the proposals from Exeter and Devon County Council.

Proposed Actions

Some attendees were taking the  opportunity to hear the presentation and reactions in Chagford.

The Councils around Okehampton could consider a collective response. There is a Wider Okehampton Cluster Group meeting on 9^th October. However, many will need to agenda this item in advance to secure a reaction at their monthly meetings. Therefore, I will circulate this report to stimulate responses.

Devon County Councillors could be asked again to provide a presentation on their proposals.

Cllr Derek Moore            Sticklepath Parish Council.