Biggest shake-up in Lancashire's local government history to be confirmed this week

An announcement is expected on Thursday - expect it to leak today

Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.

Local politics will never be the same.

It will still be a place where some councillors look more like influencers, such is their style of posting and follower count. It will still be a place where some are elected and rarely heard from for the next four years. It will still be a place where councillors really do go above and beyond to look after people in their area. And it will still be a place where individuals doing their best will catch a world of online hurt for failings that they have little power to change compared to their national counterparts.

But our local authority borders will look very different. Place names like “South Ribble” and “Hyndburn” may be on borrowed time, although not if South Ribble has anything to say about it. There will be a big batch of all-out elections which means the political make-up of the county will likely change dramatically. And whatever comes back from London in regards to how local government reorganisation affects Lancashire - plenty of people will be unhappy.

An announcement is expected on Thursday this week - but your local councils will know later today. Don’t expect it to remain a secret for long.

In today’s edition, we look at some of the playground-like jostling for mates behind the process and then rate each of the five options on how likely we think they are. We will likely be proved wrong by midday.

Lancashire briefing

🚄 The government is being urged to make a regional outpost of one of its biggest departments the centrepiece of a long-planned transformation of Preston city centre.

A vision for the regeneration of an area branded the ‘Station Quarter’ – based around the Fishergate Shopping Centre – was first unveiled back in 2022.

The first phase of the proposal – for which formal plans were submitted to Preston City Council last December – would see the creation of five office blocks on the current car park of the retail facility. The buildings – between nine and 15 storeys tall – would offer the kind of ‘Grade A’ office space Preston is deemed to lack.

During a debate in Parliament last month about investment in Lancashire, Ribble Valley MP Maya Ellis – whose constituency covers northern Preston and parts of South Ribble near the city – asked the government whether it would “progress the office relocation requirements of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as an anchor tenant to bring forward a new office quarter around Preston station”.

Her question did not get a direct answer, but was one of several seemingly designed to put specific investment opportunities on the government’s radar.

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🏠 A plan for 200 homes in Clitheroe will spoil the market town’s rural character and increase pressure on local roads, doctors and schools, objectors fear.

There are also worries that too many new houses are being built around Clitheroe, meaning the loss of important farmland.

However, developers behind the plan for land north of Pendle Road, near the A59, say it be well-designed with much-needed new homes include affordable ones.

Ribble Valley Borough Council is dealing with the outline application from Richborough Estates. But a number of objectors have sent their views to the council. They say new housing estates elsewhere on Pendle Road, Halfpenny Meadows and the Henthorn area are already changing the town.

Clitheroe Town Council has not objected but has traffic concerns and suggested a pedestrian crossing should be considered for Pendle Road. The NHS has suggested the developer pay £130,000 towards expanding services at Clitheroe Health Centre. But on education, Lancashire County Council has not requested any contribution towards local schools.

The applicant, Richborough Estates, working with Savills estate agents, says the Pendle Road scheme will be well-designed and the site is a good location. In their planning papers, they say 5.6 hectares of land will be used for new homes and 3.5 hectares for open areas, children’s play space and landscaping.

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Biggest shake-up in Lancashire’s local government history to be confirmed this week

County Hall. Credit: The Lancashire Lead

By Luke Beardsworth

One of the biggest announcements in Lancashire’s local government history will be formally published on Thursday - though it would be an achievement if it does not leak before.

Ministers are expected to deliver a decision on the size and shape of the new authorities that will be created as replacements for the 15 main councils set to be abolished.

Under the government-ordered shake-up, Lancashire County Council and the local authorities for Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire and Wyre will all be scrapped.

In their place – from April 2028 – will come anything between two and five new councils that will cover much larger areas than all of their predecessors bar the county council.

The existing authorities were last year asked by the government to redraw the council map for Lancashire by suggesting how many new bodies should replace them – and which districts should be combined to create the new-look local authority landscape.

As has always been the case, the 15 councils failed to agree on a single proposal. They failed to even come close to agreeing on a single proposal, in fact, and so five options and 800 pages of documentation were put forward.

Government guidance indicated that the new authorities should cover populations of around 500,000 people. Lancashire’s population is approximately 1.5 million, which would have made a three-way split the only option – but the county’s leaders were later told that ministers would be flexible over size in order to ensure the new authorities made geographical and practical sense.

There is no guarantee that the government will choose one of the five options put forward - they all have their strengths and weaknesses - and so it is feasible the government will announce something different altogether.

Your local councils are expected to publish the decision on Thursday (16 July) - but they will be informed by today (15 July). You can make your own mind up on how likely it is to be kept under wraps.

One council fits all?

Most Lancashire has been operating under a two-tier system (not that kind, Reform readers), which will now come to an end. It means that the council services in your area have been provided by two different councils.

Years of covering local politics and elections have taught me that this is a confusing way of doing things. People tend to associate themselves with the lower-tier councils (such as South Ribble, Wyre, Pendle and so on).

That makes sense as they are closest to home, but it does mean that when the roads are bad, the wrong council often gets it in the neck. The number of councillors sitting across both tiers of local government - and claiming two sets of allowances in some instances - only makes it more confusing.

Local government reorganisation, if nothing else, removes that issue entirely.

Do you wanna be in my gang?

The authorities being given the power to put forward their own suggestions is likely the right thing to do. But so often, the process started to resemble school playground cliques.