Norfolk and Suffolk Proposals Page 5

Great Yarmouth Borough & Waveney District for a Unitary Council

The future together - an outline for unitary structure local government

11th April 2008

Great Yarmouth Borough Council Leader of Labour Group Cllr Trevor Wainwright 11 Lapwing Close, Bradwell, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. NR318SF Email: [email protected]

Waveney District Council Leader of Labour Group Cllr Sally Spore “Four Willows”, 67c Cotmer Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk. NR33 9PS Email: [email protected]

Norfolk County Council Leader of Labour Group Cllr Sue Whitaker 9 City Road, Norwich, Norfolk. NR1 2HE Email: [email protected]

Suffolk County Council Leader of Labour Group Cllr Julian Swainson “Greenacre”, Benacre Road, Henstead, Beccles, Suffolk. NR34 7LF : [email protected]

Trevor Wainwright Sally Spore

Sue Whitaker Julian Swainson

Contents

Executive Summary Unitary Status Page 3

Map Showing Norfolk and Suffolk Proposals Page 5

Local Decisions for Local People Page 6

Our Proposal Page 8

Streamlined and Strengthened Page 9

Service Delivery Made Local Page 11

Our Support Page 12

Empowering Our Citizens Page 14

Our Context Page 17

Norfolk and Suffolk – A New Era Page 18

Executive Summary Unitary Status

There are similar and shared geographic, demographic, economic and social characteristics, which make the case for Unitary status to be created for the Sub region of Great Yarmouth and Waveney.

The council areas of Great Yarmouth and Waveney form a distinctive sub- region which requires the focus of unitary status to address the needs and expectations of the local community. Both areas have suffered from declining industry, lack of investment and some of the highest levels of deprivation in England. These have been compounded by the geographical isolation and lack of infrastructure which has made it difficult to improve both employment prospects and a range of public service outcomes.

The response to these needs and expectations has been reflected in the following actions and initiatives:

The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) established a single Urban Regeneration Company (URC) to operate across the two urban areas of Yarmouth and Lowestoft; GO-East requires a single housing strategy for the two local authority areas Since 2007 Home Select has operated as a single system across the council areas The East of England Regional Assembly (EERA) has identified Great Yarmouth and Waveney as a single sub-region for spatial planning purposes. The East of England Plan has a vision “to promote the comprehensive regeneration of the sub-region (Great Yarmouth and Waveney) by building on its unique qualities”; A strong track record of working with Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) (the history and strength of one of the first accredited LSPs in Eastern Region) and regeneration partnerships across Great Yarmouth and Waveney. A Great Yarmouth Campus for University College Suffolk. The creation of a single Primary Care Trust (PCT) for Great Yarmouth and Waveney in 2006. A Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny arrangement is already in place which is coterminous with the Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT boundaries The development of EastPort to provide the sub-region with a European gateway to assist the regeneration agenda.

Through a Unitary Council it will be possible to address the democratic deficit by effective and strategic leadership to empower the local community at all levels. This will build on the very successful Community Empowerment Networks developed in Great Yarmouth with the use of the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund over the past 8 years and the Area Forums with their devolved budgets in

Waveney. A Unitary Council will allow clearer links to be made between Councillors and their various neighbourhood communities, replacing the current confusion over boundaries and responsibilities. This development of District Forums and Town Councils will add to community involvement ensuring that engagement with the local community is central to the way in which the new council designs, builds and delivers its services to the people of Great Yarmouth and Waveney. This will deliver local government by the people and for the people of Great Yarmouth and Waveney.

It is the intention that through strategic management the council will ensure not only value for money but also equity of service delivery. This will allow the new Council to work closely with all statutory partners to create accessible, seamless, high quality and evidence-based services to all its residents. A new Unitary Council will be able to build on a well established local pattern of partnership working.

Local Decisions for Local People

“Great Yarmouth, along with Lowestoft, is the most severely deprived urban area in the Eastern Region with very significant growth and deprivation issues along with a very distinct economic structure.” – Extract from the Norfolk County Strategic Partnership response to the Regional Economic Strategy Consultation.

Residents of Great Yarmouth and Waveney feel they have a great deal in common. Both areas offer a preponderance of seasonal work – largely based around the tourist industry, which is both unreliable and poorly paid, or poorly- paid work in the food industry. Each has suffered from the decline of the fishing industry. People often commute between the two and “the border” between the two authorities is notional and academic. Both towns access a single district hospital in Gorleston. We want to develop the better paid employment clusters in electronics and energy that Great Yarmouth and Waveney share and build on our jointly-held role as the southern base for oil and gas industries in the North Sea.

In both areas there are high levels of deprivation and an overwhelming sense of being “at the end of the line”. Transport links between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft are confined to rail branch lines from Norwich and Ipswich and to single-carriageway roads. Ironically the one good road link in the Districts is the link between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft – which at least serves to unify the communities and develop the sense of interchange between them.

Both areas feel let down by the existing arrangements. Educational attainment in both Districts is sadly stalled at below the national average – a sad indictment of the existing County structures given the resources that have been channelled into education. The situation is not improved by the lack of representation at County level – it is 6 years since anyone representing a Great Yarmouth Electoral Division (or indeed any urban area) was a member of the Executive in Norfolk giving rise to a feeling that no-one with influence in local government is concerned about really coming to terms with the problems we face. Whilst the cynicism is not quite as marked in the Waveney area the same trend is clear to see – it is over 2 years since a member representing a Waveney Electoral Division was a member of the Executive in Suffolk. Recent proposed changes to the school structure highlighted how parents felt that decision-makers were remote and unaccountable.

We propose a change to this with the creation of a Unitary Council to be coterminous with the boundaries of the Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT. This will enable the area to develop a unified strategy to deal with problems and take advantage of the opportunities offered. There are significant major developments that do offer a bright future for the twin towns – the ongoing development of the Marina and the extensive brownfield Riverside area in Lowestoft offer scope for significant progress, whilst the development of the EastPort Outer Harbour in Great Yarmouth offers significant opportunities to

6 redefine local prospects – providing the area has effective single-minded political leadership.

The link between poor housing, poor educational achievement, poor income and poor health standards has been proven over many years. We need a local Council with the understanding and determination to break that vicious cycle in Great Yarmouth and Waveney. Bringing social care, housing and education together under one Authority will allow more efficient resolution of problems for families.

Our Proposal

Our proposal is to replace the existing Great Yarmouth and Waveney District Councils to form 1 unitary Authority – Great Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Council with a population of about 220,000 people including a large number of migrant workers. We are acutely aware that “Great Yarmouth and Waveney” is far from an ideal name. Such is the enthusiasm in our local communities for this Council that there is currently a competition being organised by local business people who – entirely independently from us – think that the Unitary Council is such a good idea that they are offering a significant cash reward for the person who comes up with the best name. In our view that person should also have the honour of naming the new Council but, until that competition is resolved, our working title is “Great Yarmouth and Waveney”. Our priority is to improve services and build local interest.

We are acutely aware that the level of services provided in the area at the moment is not adequate. Against that backcloth we are not prepared to suggest savings on running costs in services –, we propose that any savings made would be ploughed back to improve the level of service provided.

Streamlined and Strengthened

A total of 109 Councillors are currently elected by residents in Great Yarmouth and Waveney to District and County Councils in a constant stream of annual elections. We would envisage replacing this with a Council consisting of 44 Members (i.e. a reduction of 60%). We propose electing the Council, in its entirety, every 4 years.

Apparently simple words, yet they hide a morass of issues. The reality is that currently Waveney Council is a failing Council, Great Yarmouth Council is a weak Council, standards are falling at Norfolk County Council and Suffolk County Council does not pay as much attention to Waveney as we would wish and is making significant service cuts in the area.

There are talented Members on all 4 Councils but their talents are diluted and spread far too thinly. Also we know that many talented people will not stand for District Councils because they do not see enough of an opportunity to make a difference owing to the limited range of services which a District Council provides. We believe that a Unitary Council provides much more opportunity for Members to be able to leave their stamp by improving services. This will encourage more talented candidates to step forward. Equally, streamlining the number of Members would enable us to pay more generous allowances to offset the undoubted cost that there is in serving the community in this way. This should remove another obstacle to candidates coming forward.

Moving from annual to 4-yearly elections will remove the constant obsession with the electoral cycle. Too much time is currently spent preparing for elections, fighting elections and recovering from election campaigns as Councillors either work to seek election themselves or for Party colleagues. The change to elections every 4 years with control of the Council at stake on each occasion would encourage a move to a more strategic-thinking Council following a coherent strategy over its life-cycle. It would also encourage a more informed electorate as the elections would be more of an event with the need to place a greater emphasis in campaigning around a coherent political programme.

This move to a more strategic view would be further encouraged by the need to encompass Children’s Services, Adult Social Services and strategic Planning – currently all County Council responsibilities and areas which require deeper and more strategic thinking than, for example, refuse collection.

We therefore believe that we can demonstrate that the Unitary Council would motivate stronger candidates, develop more strategic thought and provide a stronger focus of public interest than the current model. We want to develop a Council that will not settle for second best, will commission services and develop joint services with other Councils if and when we see this as the best way forward

The move to a Unitary Council would also furnish the opportunity for fresh thinking at Senior Officer level. We would want a strong management team

9 which is motivated to provide high-quality services. There are some very talented officers working for the 4 Councils in the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area. We would want to retain these talented Officers but we would want to recruit fresh talent to supplement the team. We want highly motivated and committed Officers and would want to adequately reward them for their efforts. We believe that a Unitary Council would be better placed than the current District Councils to offer lucrative packages to attract talented candidates into the area.

Service Delivery Made Local

We would retain the main council buildings in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft (the new Waveney Campus on Riverside site in the URC area will be built by 2010). Because we would be creating an authority to serve both areas we would distribute Officers to serve local needs. However, we would no longer need many of the other poorer-condition office centres currently used by both Councils as we would be deploying many Officers differently as set out below. We would rationalise these property holdings making both revenue savings (from the reduced running costs) and gaining capital receipts (from the disposal of the premises). We are confident that the capital realization of the estate would finance the transitional process subject to market conditions.

Our Support

This proposal is jointly sponsored by:

Great Yarmouth Borough Council Labour Group Waveney District Council Labour Group Norfolk County Council Labour Group Suffolk County Council Labour Group

While we have had limited opportunity to canvass support for this proposal due to the timetable imposed to date we also enjoy the support of:

Mr. Tony Wright, Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, Mr. Bob Blizzard, Member of Parliament for Waveney, Mr. Charles Clarke, Member of Parliament for Norwich South, Dr. Ian Gibson, Member of Parliament for Norwich North Ipswich Borough Council Labour Group Norwich City Council Labour Group

We know that many members of the business community in Great Yarmouth and Waveney support the Unitary Proposal including the Lowestoft and Waveney Chamber of Commerce. We understand that both the Liberal Democrat and Green Parties also support the principles behind our proposal although the Liberal Democrats at Waveney have not formally expressed a view.

The proposal is supported by the Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT who see the merit in joint working with a Unitary Council on common boundaries. They believe would facilitate more effective working with a common agenda and catchment area.

The James Paget University Hospital Foundation Trust, whose catchment area is essentially the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area, also supports the proposal for similar reasons. Likewise the Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT Patient and Public Involvement Forum have declared their support – again seeing the merit of a focused agenda.

Both Lowestoft College and Great Yarmouth College of Further Education have also declared their support – for them the rationale of raising educational standards and aspirations in a clearly-defined catchment area is overwhelming.

The East of England Development Agency have stated that they believe that the key to economic prosperity is for the area to be treated as a sub-region in its’ own right. They believe that the only way that the area will prosper is by the current Great Yarmouth and Waveney Council areas coming together as one.

Perhaps most persuasively, consultation on the establishment of Urban Regeneration Company and the subsequent consultations on the Master Plan for Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft have also shown strong public support for the development of both towns in synergy with each other. The public clearly

12 supports complementary not competitive development and regeneration in the two towns.

Finally, we believe that the existing efforts of Waveney District Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council to undertake joint working and services in key areas demonstrate the practicality of our proposal. The 2 Councils currently work together on Planning Services, Legal Services and Housing – they have recently started to offer a joint “Home Select” choice-based lettings of social housing. Equally, both councils are heavily involved in the First East Urban Regeneration Company, which covers the 2 communities. The area is a designated sub-region for housing growth.

Whilst it would be for the electorate to determine the local political leadership, we know that there is a common belief across political parties that the political priorities across the area are to improve communications, transport, employment prospects and educational standards. There is also a strong consensus wish to improve the tourism offer in this unique location.

One of the key objectives of a Unitary Council is to improve the status of the local population through environmental, housing, health and social care interventions. Seamless joined-up services are paramount.

Empowering Our Citizens

We recognize that there is currently a democratic deficit. There are a variety of local arrangements, such as Town Mayors and Parish Councils, which have benefited our communities over the years. We would not seek to undermine these arrangements but would build upon local Forums/Committees to engage and involve local communities in the decision-making process. As an immediate measure to ensure real community involvement in the new council we would propose the following:

Great Yarmouth:

We would establish Area Committees covering Caister, Flegg, Bradwell and Lothingland villages, plus Great Yarmouth and Gorleston. Each would comprise the Councillors for those areas. In the rural parished areas, it would also include the Chairs of the Parish Councils and, in the town areas of Great Yarmouth and Gorleston, they would include representatives of the Local Community Partnerships operating in those communities.

These Committees would each have discretion for the spending of a modest Area Budget and would make recommendations on issues related to their local area direct to the Council Cabinet. We propose a separate Planning Development Control Committee for the current Great Yarmouth Borough area.

Waveney:

We would increase the number of Area Forums covering the District which would have local Councillors on them plus co-opted members of the public. They currently have small budgets for community projects (about £5,000 per annum) which we would increase. A Unitary Council would end the considerable current confusion over boundaries for neighbourhood working. The current County scheme for locality budgets for Members could be amalgamated with the Area Forum scheme.

The market towns of Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth and Southwold have Town Councils and parts of Waveney (including Carlton Colville and Oulton which are "Greater" Lowestoft) have Parish Councils. Lowestoft itself is not parished and does not have anything beyond the Area Forums. We would seek to develop a Town Council for Lowestoft. We propose a separate Planning Development Control Committee for the Waveney area.

The Area Forums will meet regularly with topical discussion given precedence over bureaucratic procedure.

We believe that our proposal represents the best and most equitable means to deliver public services in an area that has previously been very remote from key decision-making processes.

Urban Communities:

We recognise that, in rural areas, communities are readily defined – fields separating villages form boundaries that are clear and universally acknowledged. This gives a degree of clarity as to the boundaries of those communities and readily lends itself to community cohesion. In urban areas, there is not necessarily the same feeling of community identity. People identify different communities from road, local shopping precincts, and various other measures right up to town level. As every Boundary Review in an urban area has discovered, arbitrary dividing lines are drawn somewhere that puts a person in a different Division to their neighbour. Equally there are no hard and fast rules for communities – some are separated by major roads, others are drawn together by major roads (where there are clusters of shops for example). Whilst we accept the necessity for these arbitrary lines for electoral terms, we do not intend to try to force communities onto people – that way lies failure.

We believe that local schools afford the greatest sense of community that we can identify in urban settings – people almost invariably choose to send their children to the local Infant and Junior or Primary Schools and they identify with the schools in their locality.

We therefore intend to use the catchment areas of our local Infant, Junior and Primary Schools as our building blocks for our communities – parents will, in effect, define the communities for themselves as they choose schools. We accept and welcome that there will be some overlap – this indicates that people are making their own decisions.

Our schools are suffering from the twin problems of failing to deliver adequate results and falling school rolls. We intend to turn this into an opportunity. We propose to use schools as our engines for community involvement.

In our experience when children demonstrate behavioural difficulties, where attendance falls below acceptable norms, or academic development is arrested, it is rarely in isolation. Often these issues occur because of domestic difficulties – unstable families, poor housing conditions, deprivation, health issues and a whole raft of other issues requiring social intervention.

We will base Children’s Social Workers in schools to work in close liaison with Teachers to provide a bridge to these families along with advice and support. Likewise we will base Adult Social Workers in these schools to reach out to adults in need of support in these individual communities. We believe that these measures will enable earlier intervention to be made where support is needed which will, in many cases, stop the issues becoming more and more major.

As time goes on, we expect this work to strengthen the degree of social cohesion around these school catchment areas. Our ambition would be to see Area Committees, elected by local residents, developing around each school catchment area. They would be expertly advised by the Council staff based in the school, drawing on the expertise of local Health Centre staff and extending

15 the work of the Safer Neighbourhood projects currently undertaken by the Police.

While we recognise that these bodies will develop organically, some will function better than others and some will rise and fall over time. We believe that these bodies, when working effectively, should have control of modest budgets to be spent in their area. They will be an invaluable source of advice and information to local Member and Council alike and, as such, will rapidly occupy the role in urban communities that Parish Councils play in their rural equivalents.

This is our model for what we regard as truly extending the role and function of schools. They become beacons in the community, welcoming and developing local interest. We also recognise that this will have the impact of reducing some of the cynicism about schools in some of our communities – this is one of the biggest barriers standing between us and a truly successful education system.

We recognise that we also need to free up the massive pool of sports (fields, equipment and coaching expertise) and other resources (I T equipment etc.) held in Secondary Schools for the use of all the community. It is absurd that these resources are unused when our communities cry out for more and more facilities. We will therefore strongly encourage Secondary Schools to reach out to their communities offering their facilities for community use as an organised project. Our motivation? To improve sporting activities in our communities in the short term but, in the longer term, to turn the attitude of many in our community so they no longer look on schools with fear and bad memories but rather see them as centres of enjoyment and achievement.

Research has shown that children in Great Yarmouth and Waveney are no less ambitious than children anywhere else in the country but that their aspirations and ambitions are “damped down” by other influences e.g. parents, peer pressure. When parents in our communities have a more positive attitude about schools then the children will be encouraged to perform better and work to their strengths. This dovetails in with the Extended Schools agenda and would be a positive way of progressing its implementation.

Our Context

In submitting the proposal for the creation of the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Council, we have taken into account other considerations in Norfolk and Suffolk. We are convinced that Unitary Councils offer the best value for money and transparency and accountability to their residents. We therefore submit our proposal in the knowledge that it would enable the adoption of a pattern of Unitary Authorities in both Norfolk and Suffolk.

For the last decade Great Yarmouth and Waveney has been designated as a sub-region, despite straddling the Norfolk-Suffolk border. Great Yarmouth and Waveney Councils have been developing and refining inter-authority co- operation for more than 5 years. It would be appalling to sever those links now. We also believe that, if a divide is forced along the current county boundary, this would jeopardise the long-term future of the PCT.

Interestingly a number of outside agencies recognise the need to cross the county boundary to best serve their public – The Thomson Local Directory covers Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft as does the First Bus local timetable, Beach Radio serves Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft and the University College Suffolk now includes Yarmouth College as one of its’ campuses. Any “solution” not bringing Great Yarmouth and Waveney together is flawed, failing to recognise the practicalities that unite our communities.

Norfolk and Suffolk – A New Era

We understand that the final proposals need to form a logical pattern of Local Government in both Norfolk and Suffolk. We do not propose any change to the existing county boundaries of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Unitary Council has the key function of creating the right conditions for a prosperous Great Yarmouth and Waveney sub-region for the future. It will be judged on its success in building a more prosperous economy to underpin improved quality of life for all its citizens - a welcome end to its "Cinderella" status within a single generation. It is not about jettisoning the proud separate traditions within Norfolk and Suffolk.

The heraldry of the Great Yarmouth Port proudly bears the Coats of Arms of both Norfolk and Suffolk. The new Great Yarmouth and Waveney Council will protect and develop these separate identities - ensuring that the mayoralty and customs of Great Yarmouth are maintained with pride into the future and similarly the Suffolk heritage and Town Mayors of Lowestoft, Beccles, Bungay. Halesworth and Southwold.

Just as the Yarmouth Harbour mouth once lay in Corton, Suffolk - until Dutch engineers fashioned the current long-standing configuration of the port - so geography has determined the shared life experience of the people of Great Yarmouth and Waveney and their endeavours: their ports, fishing, holiday industries and, more recently, in oil, gas and renewable energy technologies.

We are confident that the new Authorities can and will co-operate to fulfil any residual roles that are required in the two counties. We recognise that the Norfolk and Suffolk Police Forces will continue to operate under their separate Constabulary identities but also that they are already devoting resources to improved cross-border operation and shared working. We therefore do not believe that there would be any major cross-boundary policing problems. We demonstrate below one particular model that we believe would function effectively. However, we recognise that this is far from the only solution that is viable.

We believe that the argument for Unitary Councils for Norwich and Ipswich are as compelling as the case for a unitary Great Yarmouth and Waveney. We therefore strongly support the proposals submitted by other authorities to create Unitary Councils for both these conurbations on boundaries that reflect the urban populations of both councils. We see the creation of these Unitary Councils as crucial for the economic wellbeing of Norfolk and Suffolk. We envisage that the 3 new urban Unitary Councils would share many interests and therefore would work closely together as an effective and cohesive lobby group – at both national and European level – to attract the necessary investment in the East Anglia infrastructure to secure our future. There are already strong links between the Member Groups of these 3 areas.

Our indicative proposals are:

Norfolk:

We have chosen to use Parliamentary Constituencies as our building blocks for our proposals for Norfolk as we believe that they provide a good guide in terms of our “thick felt tip” boundaries for Norfolk. They also ensure that each of our proposed authorities would have sufficient population size to be viable as they each contain a minimum of 2 parliamentary seats – and therefore a population in excess of 200,000.

Great Yarmouth Parliamentary Constituency would form part of Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Council with a population of approximately 220,000.

The urban area of Norwich, which we would identify as all of Norwich North and Norwich South Parliamentary Constituencies and some marginal additional area would form the new Norwich Unitary Council with a population of approximately 220,000

North Norfolk, Broadland and North West Norfolk Parliamentary Constituencies would form a new North Norfolk Unitary Council. This new Council would be overwhelmingly rural in outlook and we identify significant communalities across the area that would provide significant challenges for that council. It would bring together a swathe of attractive rural tourist towns and sites and a band of Norfolk market towns. It would encompass a sizeable number of communities already recognised as attractive retirement areas and would thus require a significant emphasis on Adult Social Services. It would draw together Councils which already co-operate in their approach to the tourism economy and the management of sensitive environmental areas. It would have the additional challenge of containing significant pockets of rural poverty and would have a population of approximately 240,000.

South Norfolk, Mid Norfolk and South West Norfolk Parliamentary Constituencies would form a new South Norfolk Unitary Council. Whilst this Council would also be predominantly rural we identify a series of different challenges for this Council – serving a community with significant number of commuters. A sizeable number of people living within this proposed Authority commute to work in Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge, Peterborough, and, inevitably, London. Equally these commuters travel by a mix of car, train and bus. We therefore recognise that the new South Norfolk Unitary Council would be under immense pressure to place a high priority on transport. The Councils currently face the common challenge of managing a large rural area with high pressures for commuter housing and the intensification of existing settlements. They could effectively share expertise and resources in a new Unitary Council. This Council would have a population of approximately 277,000.

If there were a significant lobby from the west of the County for the creation of a West Norfolk Unitary from the North West Norfolk and South West Norfolk Constituencies then we believe that this could also be accommodated subject to ensuring that this did not undermine the critical mass of the other authorities

Suffolk:

In drawing up our proposals for Suffolk we have returned to previous structures because our understanding is that these arrangements were well understood and popular with residents. We believe that these are sufficient for the broad brush treatment required at this stage. We therefore specify the approximate populations involved.

Waveney District would form part of the new Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Council with a total population of 220,000.

A new Ipswich Unitary Council would be created based on the urban area with a total population of 130,000 and projected for significant growth as part of the Greater Haven Gateway Sub Regional Housing Strategy.

A new East Suffolk Unitary Council would be created based on the existing Mid Suffolk, Suffolk Coastal and part of Babergh District Councils with a population of about 213,000.

A new West Suffolk Unitary Council would be created – based on Forest Heath, St Edmundsbury and part of Babergh District Councils with a population of about 231,000. There is a strong desire across all political parties to see a West Suffolk Unitary Council, reflecting the traditional importance of Bury St Edmunds to its hinterland.

These new unitary councils of East and West Suffolk would reflect a return to arrangements previously enjoyed in the County prior to an earlier local government re-organisation.

General

We therefore propose that, in future, the only Councils needed to serve the populations of Norfolk and Suffolk are Norwich, North Norfolk, South Norfolk, Ipswich, East Suffolk, West Suffolk and of course Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Councils. This model replaces 14 District and 2 County Councils with 7 Unitary Councils and thus gives significant scope for savings which should be redirected to improve frontline services. It also removes at a stroke the current blurring between District and County Council responsibilities which confuse and irritate residents and allows a culture of blame transfer to thrive. However it is important to recognise that there are a large number of configurations that could be adopted to brigade the rural communities into meaningful Unitary Councils around the key feature of creating the 3 urban Unitary Councils. Our primary concern is to urge the creation of the 3 urban Councils that are needed to drive up standards and be a beacon of achievement. It is our ambition to see Great Yarmouth and Waveney Unitary Council acclaimed as a high-quality Council providing diverse services to meet the needs of our community.