Leicester City Council has published a new proposal on local government reorganisation, setting out a possible merger with three neighbouring district authorities.
Under the plan, the city council could join with Harborough District Council, Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, and Blaby District Council to form a single unitary authority. The rest of Leicestershire would be served by another unitary body covering the remaining districts.
However, the report stresses that this is not the city council’s preferred option. Leicester leaders have instead expressed a wish to extend the city’s boundaries to include nearby towns and villages.
The council says that according to legal advice from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) it must use whole districts as building blocks when submitting initial proposals, ruling out partial boundary changes at this stage.
Want to learn more about local government reorganisation? Check out: Local Government Reorganisation: What It Means and Why It Matters.
