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The government has launched its public consultation on Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) in Devon.
It will run for seven weeks, finishing on 26th March. The link to the government website is available here.
In December 2024, the UK Government announced plans to simplify the structure of local government across England. Areas such as Devon, which currently has a ‘two-tier’ system comprising a county council and district councils, were asked to develop new unitary authorities.
Last year, existing authorities were asked by the government to put together proposals for what LGR in Devon should look like.
Four proposals were submitted; one by Devon County Council, one by Plymouth and Exeter’s city councils, one by Torbay Council, and one by a collaboration of seven district councils.
The district council proposal, commonly referred to as the 4-5-1 plan, includes a main case that would see the creation of two new authorities, while retaining Plymouth City Council on its existing boundaries. The two new authorities would be:
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Exeter and Northern Devon – covering East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon and Torridge.
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Torbay and Southern Devon – covering the South Hams, Teignbridge, Torbay and West Devon.
The proposal also contained a modified option of this plan known as the 4-5-1+ plan, supported by most of the seven district councils, to modestly expand the boundaries of Plymouth into four parishes currently in the South Hams. You can read in detail about 4-5-1+ on page 267 of our Reimagining Devon proposal.
Now known as Reimagining Devon, it was drafted as a single proposal. However, you will note that the Reimagining Devon branding does not appear on the government website, and that government has split Reimagining Devon into two separate proposals.
On the GOV.UK website, the ‘main case’ Reimagining Devon proposal is the one described as:
“South Hams District Council, Teignbridge Borough Council, West Devon Borough Council proposed 3 unitary councils. These would comprise the current areas of:
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Exeter and Northern Devon Unitary: East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon and Torridge
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Plymouth to remain unchanged
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Torbay and Southern Devon Unitary: South Hams, Teignbridge, Torbay and West Devon”
The modified version of Reimagining Devon with the option to expand the boundaries of Plymouth is the one described as:
“East Devon Borough Council, Mid Devon District Council, North Devon Council, Torridge District Council proposed 3 unitary councils. This includes a request to split existing district council areas between the proposed new councils. These would comprise the current areas of:
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Exeter and Northern Devon Unitary: East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon, and Torridge
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Plymouth Expanded: parts of the parishes of Bickleigh, Briston, Shaugh Prior and Sparkwell from the neighbouring district of South Hams
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Torbay and Southern Devon Unitary: South Hams, Teignbridge, Torbay and West Devon”
The government website contains a link through to all of the proposals, which will take you to the joint Devon LGR website.
This site has the main proposal and modified proposal listed separately. All of the seven district councils support the main case - but the way in which the government has decided to consult does not make this clear.
You can access all of the full proposal documents from this page, and the full Reimagining Devon LGR document is available here.
Once you’ve had the chance to look at each of the various proposals, the consultation asks you to respond to a series of questions on each proposal, again describing the Reimagining Devon proposal using the wording above.
In drawing up proposals, all councils were given guidelines to comply with by government. One of these was that each of the new authorities should serve a minimum of 500,000 population, although government did say that it would consider proposals that contained less than this if there was justification.
Councillors at South Hams District Council were concerned the push for bigger authorities might result in local decision-making being lost. It was for that reason that the Reimagining Devon proposal was drafted with the belief that this provides a balance between scale and local democracy.
We're encouraging people living here in the South Hams to have their say and share their thoughts with government.
You can read our press release here and watch our video with Council Leader Dan Thomas here.
Paper copies of the survey will be available in Follaton House for people without internet access.
We hope that this email is helpful when you’re looking through the proposals and the consultation.
You can also watch our recent town and parishes briefing on LGR if that is also helpful.
We also hope that your council can find the time to respond – if you need any further information on LGR generally, or the Reimagining Devon proposal specifically, please contact us on LGR@swdevon.gov.uk
South Hams District Council
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