Council leaders have announced they have identified 3 preferred options for creating new unitary councils across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
The announcement has been made in response to a national government requirement to replace the current district, county and city councils with simpler unitary councils, instead of two tiers of local government.
From April 2028, rather than dealing with separate county, city, and district authorities, residents will access all services—from road maintenance and bin collections to education, planning, social housing, social care, and support with benefits—through a unitary council.
Parish and town councils will not be affected and will continue to operate as they do now, serving your local communities.
The Government believes these changes will improve services, making them simpler and more efficient for residents and businesses, as well as supporting economic growth and delivering much needed housing.
Since these proposed changes were announced by Government in late 2024, all 7 authorities have been working collaboratively to identify viable options for new unitary councils across the region.
In a joint statement, council leaders have said: “As council leaders we are working collaboratively in the best interest of residents and businesses across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
The Government’s reorganisation agenda has raised some challenging issues for us all which we have been working through collectively over the last few months.
We still have outstanding questions and issues which have yet to be resolved. However, we agree that there are currently 3 options that appear to be the most financially viable based on the Government’s criteria.
These options are based on existing authority boundaries and are being further developed to be submitted to Government by late November.
The three options each contain two new unitary councils that would in future cover the entire Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area and replace all existing local authorities:
|
Proposal A A North-West/South-East Option |
Unitary 1 | Peterborough City Council, Huntingdonshire and Fenland District Councils along with County Council functions |
| Unitary 2 | Cambridge City Council, East Cambridgeshire and South Cambridgeshire District Councils along with County Council functions | |
|
Proposal B A North/South Option |
Unitary 1 | Peterborough City Council, East Cambridgeshire, Fenland and Huntingdonshire District Councils along with County Council functions |
| Unitary 2 | Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District along with County Council functions | |
|
Proposal C An East/West Option |
Unitary 1 | Peterborough City Council, East Cambridgeshire and Fenland District Councils along with County Council functions |
| Unitary 2 | Cambridge City Council, Huntingdonshire and South Cambridgeshire District Councils along with County Council functions |
We recognise each option has different strengths and different implications for services, our local communities, and businesses.
We are taking an evidence-based approach, inevitably the different needs and local identities of our areas will have a significant impact on the preference of our own councils, and we must respect that.
We encourage residents, our partner agencies and businesses to feed into this process by sharing what matters most to them through an engagement exercise being launched next week.
We also want to take this opportunity to reassure residents that services will not be affected, and to praise the collective local government workforce across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough for their continued efforts on behalf of our communities during this period of change.
We appreciate that reorganisation may create some uncertainty for them which we will work with Government to do our best to mitigate.”
The statement can be attributed to:
- Cllr Anna Bailey, Leader, East Cambridgeshire District Council
- Cllr Chris Boden, Leader, Fenland District Council
- Cllr Sarah Conboy, Leader, Huntingdonshire District Council
- Cllr Cameron Holloway, Leader, Cambridge City Council
- Cllr Dennis Jones, Leader, Peterborough City Council
- Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, Leader, Cambridgeshire County Council
- Cllr Bridget Smith, Leader, South Cambridgeshire District Council