Councillors in Cumbria will hear call to withdraw from legal proceedings
The full council is set to hear the Conservative group’s call to cease legal proceedings against the Government as they believe it would be a “waste” of the council’s time and money.
Cumbria County Council is set to meet at Carlisle Racecourse on Thursday February 11 and it is the first full meeting since the decision was made to renew the authority’s fight against local government reorganisation.
Central Government is in the process of reorganising Cumbria into two local authority areas. This means that Cumbria’s existing seven councils will be abolished and replaced by two new unitary authorities.
From 2023, Cumberland Council will govern Carlisle, Allerdale and Copeland. Westmorland & Furness Council will govern Eden, South Lakeland and Barrow-in-Furness.
The county council’s Labour leadership are opposed to the restructure as they believe the two-authority model benefits the Conservative Government’s political goals.
But the Labour-Liberal Democrat leadership were told in January that their application for legal proceedings had been refused.
It later emerged that the council has renewed its application for a Judicial Review, requesting permission for its barrister to make verbal representations to the judge.
But the Conservative group are opposed to the move. The motion to full council on Thursday will ask that councillors oppose the legal fight.
Conservative councillor Graham Roberts said: “We as the Conservative Group want it withdrawn because it’s a lot of money to spend on something that won’t happen. The Lib Dems don’t support it, it was the Labour group that put it forward.”
The Liberal Democrats’ half of the ruling coalition abstained on the vote to launch legal proceedings.
Cllr Roberts said: “A Judicial Review would only look at how the process was carried out, it won’t effect the outcome.”
He called the legal proceedings “delaying tactics” from the Labour group.
But leader of the council Stewart Young said: “The budget papers also confirm that the county council is having to pay £9.5 million from our reserves towards a pot of £19 million to be used to draw up plans to abolish the existing seven Cumbrian councils and replace them with two new unitary councils, as required by the Government.
“The other half of this pot is being paid by the district and borough councils. As this work progresses it is becoming more and more apparent that the new model will be more expensive than the existing structure, and the impact on key services and the staff who deliver them will last for years.
“The county council is taking a Judicial Review to try to persuade the Government to abandon their plans and have a rethink before it is too late. The Levelling-Up White Paper published this week shows that just as the Government has confirmed that they will do devolution deals with county councils and their districts and boroughs, we are about to be abolished, and Cumbria risks being left behind as other areas move forward. That is why this JR is important, and why we have a duty to pursue it.”
Roger Bingham, president of the Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservative Association, said: “Let’s stick with two new counties. Those who say that a single county would save the people’s money do not instil confidence when they are persisting with legal costs of challenging the two new counties, Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness."