Councils have threatened to walk away from Government attempts to engage with them on Brexit amid growing frustrations about the response to their concerns.

Regional returns from local authorities collated by a network of nine chief executives, whose names were only formally announced two weeks ago, contained a ‘clear message’ that feedback from Whitehall has been ‘incomplete and may not result in continued buy-in to the MHCLG [Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government] process’.

A summary of the ‘big issues’ from the regional returns last week, compiled by the Local Government Association (LGA) and seen by The MJ, read: ‘All regional returns stress the need of a rapid and detailed response to weekly concerns raised by LAs [local authorities] through this channel from Whitehall.

‘There continues to be some big gaps in information (e.g. contingency plans for EU elections if Article 50 is extended and the detail of national fuel planning).

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