Lancashire has been invited to have its say on the size, shape and number of new councils that are to be created as part of the biggest local authority shake-up in the county for more than 50 years.
A public consultation has been launched into the options for a government-ordered overhaul that will see all 15 main councils in Lancashire abolished in 2028 and replaced with a handful of new authorities. Those replacements will be responsible for delivering all local services across large swathes of the county.
The existing authorities were last year asked to submit their visions for how the local government map should be redrawn once they are consigned to history – which basically amounted to them deciding which areas should merge with each other to deliver the streamlined new set-up.
Amid a longstanding lack of local consensus on the subject, Lancashire submitted five suggestions to the government back in November, which would see the county carved up into anything between two and five new council areas – including two different suggested configurations for a four-council arrangement.
The government will decide later this year which of the options to implement as part of its local government reorganisation (LGR) project – but is first carrying out a formal consultation into all five of them.
Prior to the lodging of the proposals, several senior figures close to the process in Lancashire had expected ministers would create a shortlist upon which to consult.
However, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands it was later made clear that the bids would go through a simple pass or fail test by which they were judged only against the legislative criteria dictating how the suggestions should be formulated. Any option deemed compliant was allowed to proceed – and all of them cleared that hurdle.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government told the LDRS that that was always its intention – and a letter to Lancashire council leaders from local government minister Alison McGovern, announcing the consultation, said that the approach was “consistent” with that taken so far across the wider LGR programme under way nationwide.
Nevertheless, the LDRS understands that a collective attempt was made by several Lancashire leaders to persuade the government to discount the two options at either end of the range of submissions – namely, the blueprint for creating just two new councils for the whole of Lancashire, as backed by Lancashire County Council, and the proposal for five replacement authorities, which was put forward by Burnley and Pendle councils.
However, with all of the options ultimately remaining on the table, residents, businesses and more than a hundred ‘named consultees’ have now been invited to have their say in a consultation that runs until 26th March.
The latter group includes the 15 Lancashire councils themselves, which will now each have the chance to pass formal judgement on rival bids. In making their submissions, local authorities not only had to set out which areas they wanted to merge with, but also develop corresponding proposals for the rest of the county that fitted with that they had drawn up for their own patch.
The other consultees being specifically targeted include a raft of local organisations – such as NHS trusts, universities and the police and fire services.
However, the government insists that it also wants to hear from residents, town and parish councils, businesses and the voluntary and community sector.
A local engagement exercise seeking the public’s opinion on LGR was carried out on behalf of the current Lancashire councils last year before the proposals were sent to the government.
As the LDRS previously revealed, 63 percent of the more than 13,400 respondents wanted the existing local authorities to remain unchanged – with the same proportion saying that they had a positive experience of the services provided under the current arrangements. That survey did no, however, request an expression of preferences for any individual options.
Lancashire County Council leader Stephen Atkinson had asked the government to hold a legally-binding referendum before pressing ahead with LGR, but was told that such a vote was not part of the process, which is being undertaken in more than 20 counties across England on the same timeframe.
In her letter to Lancashire leaders, Alison McGovern pledged that her boss, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, will consider Lancashire’s LGR proposals “carefully”.
“He will also consider the responses to the consultation, all representations and all other relevant information, assessing the proposals against the criteria before reaching a final decision,” Ms. McGovern added.
However, she also revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) will be used “to assist officials to analyse the responses received” in the consultation.
The government has said it would like the new councils to serve populations of at least 500,000 people, but that it is willing to be flexible on that front in order to ensure the replacement authorities cover areas that make geographical sense.
What are the options?
These are the arrangements that each of the existing councils have requested the government implement in order to create a new-look Lancashire – showing which council areas would merge and how many residents would be served by the new authorities in each area:
Two new councils
Factfile: a proposed North-South split of Lancashire, roughly along the line of the River Ribble. This option creates the largest new authorities of any of the proposals.
Council 1: Blackpool, Fylde, Lancaster, Preston, Ribble Valley and Wyre (722,045 residents)
Council 2: Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Chorley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, South Ribble and West Lancashire (879,510 residents)
Promoted by: Lancashire County Council
Three new councils
Factfile: the option that most closely aligns with the government’s preferred 500,000 population criteria for the new councils.
Council 1: Blackpool, Fylde, Lancaster and Wyre (493,387 residents)
Council 2: Chorley, Preston, South Ribble and West Lancashire (521,811 residents)
Council 3: Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale (586,357 residents)
Promoted by: Blackburn with Darwen, Fylde, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Wyre councils
Four new councils (version 1)
Factfile: the most widely-supported option amongst the existing councils, with six of them backing the proposal.
Council 1: Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre (348,381 residents)
Council 2: Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire (358,947 residents)
Council 3: Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale (520,563 residents)
Council 4: Lancaster, Preston and Ribble Valley (373,664 residents)
Promoted by: Chorley, Lancaster, Preston, Ribble Valley, South Ribble and West Lancashire councils
Four new councils (version 2)
Factfile: the only proposal to suggest splitting up existing districts as part of the changes. The government has said there would have to be “strong justification” for it to agree to such a move. This option would also create a new council that would be the smallest of any of those proposed across the five bids.
Council 1: Blackpool, Fylde, Preston and western Wyre (475,222 residents)
Council 2: Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire (358,947 residents)
Council 3: Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, southernmost Ribble Valley and Rossendale (565,968 residents)
Council 4: Lancaster, most of Ribble Valley [excluding Clitheroe and southernmost areas] and eastern and northern Wyre (201,508 residents)
Promoted by: Blackpool Council
Five new councils
Factfile: the only proposal under which three of the new councils would cover populations of less than 315,000.
Council 1: Blackpool, Fylde and Preston (348,381 residents)
Council 2: Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire (358,947 residents)
Council 3: Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Ribble Valley (314,302 residents)
Council 4: Lancaster and Wyre (263,749 residents)
Council 5: Burnley, Rossendale and Pendle (272,055 residents)
Promoted by: Burnley and Pendle councils.
The big questions
Consultation respondents will be asked to answer eight questions and will have a chance to expand on each of them in more detail. They will be asked:
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposal suggests councils that are based on sensible geographies and economic areas?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposed councils will be able to deliver the outcomes they describe in the proposal?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposed councils are the right size to be efficient, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposed councils will deliver high quality, sustainable public services?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposal has been informed by local views and will meet local needs?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that establishing the councils in this proposal will support devolution arrangements?
***to what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposal enables stronger community engagement and gives the opportunity for neighbourhood empowerment?
***this is a proposal that is accompanied by a request that the Secretary of State considers boundary change or that affects wider public services. To what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposal sets out a strong public services and financial sustainability justification for boundary change?
Why is this happening?
The government wants to scrap the so-called ‘two-tier’ system that operates across most of Lancashire, under which responsibility for different services is split between Lancashire County Council and the dozen district authorities – Preston, South Ribble, Chorley, West Lancashire, Fylde, Wyre, Lancaster, Ribble Valley, Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle.
County Hall looks after the likes of roads, transport, social care and schools, while the districts are responsible for services including waste collection, most planning applications, housing and parks.
The new arrangement will create a smaller number of standalone – or ‘unitary’ – authorities that deliver all local services in their areas, just like Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils do already.
The government says the new single-tier councils will be more cost effective and comprehensible to the public.
Local government minister Alison McGovern said during a statement in the Commons last week: “We will finally put an end to [a] two-tier system that slows down local decisions, sees local economies fragmented with different councils responsible for different priorities and means outdated boundaries stop our towns and cities from growing.
“Instead, we will see one council in charge for each area, fully responsible for taking the quicker decisions to build homes and grow our towns and cities, as well as creating the right conditions for businesses to invest, grow, and create jobs. That’s why reorganisation is a vital element in our vision for reform – stronger local councils equipped to drive economic growth, improve local public services, and empower their communities.”
What happens next?
The government will assess the council proposals and consultation responses before choosing which option – if any – it wants to implement across Lancashire. That decision is expected in the summer.
Elections to establish the memberships of each of the new authorities will take place in May 2027, at which point the replacement councils will begin to operate in ‘shadow’ form.
Although work to transition to the new arrangements will, by that point, be well under way – and the new councils will have to be consulted on major spending decisions – the existing authorities will remain in day-to-day control until their abolition on 31st March, 2028. Their successors will formally come into being the following day.
How to have your say
Each of the five proposals can be viewed in full here: https://lancashirelgr.co.uk/proposals
To take part in the consultation, visit:
or post responses to the consultation questions, marking them clearly ‘Lancashire, Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen’ to:
:LGR Consultation,
Fry Building 2NE,
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,
2, Marsham Street,
London, SW1P 4DF.
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