County Council will continue efforts to halt Government’s reorganisation plans
Efforts to stop local government reorganisation in Cumbria are to continue ,despite the High Court’s decision not to grant legal action.
It was revealed last week that Cumbria County Council’s call for a Judicial Review has been rejected by High Court Judge Stephen Davies.
The Labour leadership are opposed to the Government’s decision to abolish Cumbria’s existing county council and six district councils and replace them with two new unitary authorities.
County council leader Stewart Young feels that the east-west split benefits the political agenda of the Conservative Government. And a document seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service reveals that the county council has now moved to renew its application for a Judicial Review.
The letter reads: “Cumbria County Council renews its application for permission to apply for Judicial review of the decision of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities dated 21st July 2021 to create two new authorities for the county of Cumbria (“the East-West Proposal”) rather than a single unitary as proposed by the County.
“Permission was refused on the papers by His Honour Stephen Davies on 14th January 2022.”
Cllr Young said: “It is part of the normal process of a Judicial Review and we had until 4.30pm today to lodge our application, which we did.
“I think we have a duty to pursue this, given that the councils have been told it is going to cost £19 million just to draw up plans as to how this can be done, plans which should have been drawn up before the proposal was put forward, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the savings which Copeland mayor Mike Starkie and Allerdale leader Mike Johnson said would be achieved as a result of splitting the county in two will prove to be illusory.”
Cllr Young said that the renewal application asks for “the opportunity for our barrister to make oral representations to the Judge, whose previous view was based solely on his reading of the submitted papers.”
Mr Starkie, a co-author of the two council split, said: “Given the emphatic nature of the rejection of the first ill founded venture into court, I’m absolutely staggered that they’re going to incur further costs to the tax payer. He should accept when he’s beat.”
The High Court’s rejection of a legal challenge came at a cost to the council.
The county was ordered to pay the Secretary of State’s legal costs of £15,223.41 and the £7,500 costs of each western council and eastern council.
Workington MP Mark Jenkinson said: “Once again Labour, supported by the Lib Dems, set off on a waste of huge sums of cash, taken from hard-pressed council-taxpayers – hot on the heels of that wasted in the judicial review and the £25 million wasted on the Amey case.
“Their ability to waste both money and time better spent on improving the lives of Cumbrians knows no bounds.”