Councillors will be asked to consider two options for creating new authorities in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire, before recommending their preferred choice for government approval to the council's Cabinet for a decision.
Members are to discuss proposals for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) at an extraordinary meeting of Full Council taking place at Sand Martin House at 4pm on Wednesday 12 November.
The move comes as part of Whitehall’s national requirement to replace current district, county and city councils with unitary councils from April 2028, aimed at reducing duplication and improving the quality and sustainability of council services.
Five options for reorganisation in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire were presented to the council’s Joint Scrutiny Committees for consideration and feedback at a meeting on October 28. At that meeting Members agreed that options A (North and South) and D (Greater Peterborough) were their preferred choices for further consideration.
These two options will now be discussed by Full Council, ahead of a final decision being made by Cabinet on 18 November. All seven councils in Cambridgeshire are required to submit their preferred option by no later than November 28 before the government decides which plan to take forward.
Councillor Shabina Qayyum, Leader of Peterborough City Council, said: “This is the biggest shake-up of local government since the 1970s aimed at streamlining and enhancing local government to the betterment of our communities. We are fully invested in this process and have been actively working with officers and councillors across the region to move forwards.
“Change is coming and we are developing options which we believe will help secure Peterborough’s future prosperity whilst continuing to provide high quality public services. We have now whittled the five options down to two proposals which we feel are best aligned with local and national objectives and I look forward to further discussion.”
Under the current system of local government, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire operate within a mixed system: Peterborough is already a unitary authority, whereas the remainder of Cambridgeshire is managed by a two-tier system - Cambridgeshire County Council alongside five district councils.
The government seeks to abolish these two-tier arrangements, replacing them with unitary councils. Where existing unitary areas are deemed too small, these too are included in the reorganisation.
The two options chosen for further discussions by city councillors are as follows:
Option A (North and South) – Unitary 1 (Peterborough, Fenland, Huntingdonshire), Unitary 2 (East Cambridgeshire, South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City)
Option D (Greater Peterborough) – Unitary 1 (Peterborough, West Huntingdonshire), Unitary 2 (Fenland, East Huntingdonshire, East Cambridgeshire), Unitary 3 (South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City)
For more information and to read the agenda for the full council meeting visit our website.