All of Lancashire’s 15 main councils could be scrapped and replaced with just a handful of new authorities if the government backs a call being made by a group of MPs.

The majority of the county’s Labour parliamentarians have this week written to the government to push for a radical redrawing of the council map.

The overhaul, they say, should be a prelude to the creation of an Andy Burnham-style elected mayor for Lancashire.

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If accepted, the proposal would see Lancashire County Council, the area’s dozen district councils – such as Preston, Ribble Valley and Burnley – and the standalone authorities covering Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen all bite the dust in just 18 months’ time.

It would represent the biggest council shake-up in Lancashire in half a century and lead to a vast reduction in the nearly 700 councillors that currently represent the county within the affected authorities.

The MPs’ intervention, made in a letter to local government minister Jim McMahon, is an attempt to fulfil a desire amongst their number for a more extensive devolution deal than the one drawn up by the previous Conservative administration – which was rubber-stamped by their own government just two months ago.

While Labour have initially declined to amend the agreement that was put in place before the general election – in spite of some of the party’s Lancashire cohort in the Commons agitating for them to do so – Jim McMahon did call on the county to bring forward proposals for “deeper and wider devolution” by next autumn.

However, some of those MPs have now told him in their letter that even 12 months is too long to wait for the county to take a further tentative stride down the road to devolution – pressing instead for Lancashire to reach its final destination in one giant leap.   Their aim is for a mayor to be elected by 2027 to oversee a much broader suite of powers – and a larger amount of cash – than is currently on the table.

The letter describes the current deal as not being “ambitious enough” and says the county needs the resources and control “to tackle the great issues of our time”, like health and social care services, transport, regeneration and growth.

The dual-pronged proposal involves a streamlining of the county’s complex two-tier system of local government, under which responsibilities are presently split between the county council and district authorities in most areas, with Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen operating as so-called ‘unitary’ councils who look after all the services in their patch.

The MPs want to bring the latter model, of a single council covering a particular area, to all corners of the county – thereby abolishing the 15 that currently exist.

To that end, they have suggested the creation of three or four new local authorities, elections for which would be held in May 2026.  That would involve cancelling the local elections to Lancashire County Council, due to take place next year, and extending the term of its 84 elected members for a further, final 12 months.

Crucially, they tell the government that the councils that would disappear under their blueprint would be “very unlikely” to agree what kind of set-up should replace them –  and so ask whether the government would be “willing to impose a new structure on Lancashire”.

The MPs add that they would “support” that move – which could prove controversial at a local level – and call for a decision to be made by ministers before the end of the year.

The letter does not set out any suggestions about which districts and boroughs should be merged in order to create the new councils – requesting only that the Boundary Commission be tasked with developing a proposal and stating that each of the replacement authorities should have between 300,000 and 550,000 residents.

The signatories acknowledge the “good outcomes” achieved by the existing councils – particularly at a district level – but claim that the two-tier system “does not work for our residents”. They describe the county council as an all-too-often “distant governance system”, while the borough and city authorities are “under-powered, under-sized and under-resourced”.

The LDRS approached several Lancashire Labour MPs regarding the letter, but none was willing to comment.

However, a spokesperson for the three authorities that signed the current devolution deal – Lancashire County Council, Blackpool Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council – said the trio believed the agreement with the government “is in the best interests of Lancashire”.

“Already £20m has been released to support projects that we know will make a difference and create much needed employment.

“We have also agreed with government that following the publication of the new English devolution bill white paper due before Christmas, we will explore all governance models that reflect the geography, the economy and the political landscape of Lancashire, working closely with local councils and other important stakeholders, ensuring that we remain in a strong position to receive further powers and funding in the future.”

Meanwhile, when approached by the LDRS about the MPs’ letter, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – the department of which Jim McMahon is a part – said:  “As part of the biggest transfer of power from Westminster, we want to better support councils that want to move to simpler structures that make sense for their areas and where that better meets the needs of local people.

 “We are working with local leaders across England to deliver the most ambitious programme of devolution this country has ever seen, and will set out further details in the upcoming English Devolution White Paper.”

How would it work – and why is it being suggested?

If the MPs’ plan is picked up by the government, all of Lancashire’s current councils would vanish by the summer of 2026.

Three – or, at the most, four – new ones would replace them, with all of their members being elected in May that year.

Should the MPs also get the deeper devolution deal they want, a new combined authority would sit above the freshly-created councils.  It would have an elected mayor at its helm who would oversee the newly devolved powers being sent to the county – and the cash to take advantage of them.

Such an agreement would be akin to a ‘level 3’ devolution deal – the most extensive on offer to local areas like Lancashire.

The current ‘level 2’ arrangement the county has secured also comes with a new body to implement it – a county combined authority (CCA) – but with no mayor.   The presence of an all-powerful figurehead has been a perennial sticking point for agreement between Lancashire’s leaders throughout the eight years they have been attempting to strike a devolution deal.

Critics of the current deal – which does not involve any change to the 15 existing councils – argue that Lancashire is being shortchanged.

The county is getting £20m from the government for innovation-led growth projects – but that so far one-off payment is dwarfed by the sums given to mayoral devolved areas, like the Liverpool City Region which was handed a package worth £30m a year for 30 years.

The new government is not – yet – officially demanding a council restructure in return for a step up to level 3, although the budget last month referenced a plan to “working with councils to move to simpler structures that make sense for their local areas”.

It added that “efficiency savings from council reorganisation” could help to “meet the needs of local people”.

However, during nearly a decade of often tortured negotiations over devolution in Lancashire, the one issue that has proved more divisive than an elected mayor is any suggestion that individual councils might be abolished.

If Labour MPs have the ear of their government, both of those things could soon be coming down the track.

Who’s joining who?

While the politicians that have come up with the latest idea for a council revamp are silent in their letter to Whitehall about exactly what the new arrangements should look like, this is not the first time such a restructure has been proposed.

Back in 2020 – when a flurry of ideas were floated about local government reorganisation in Lancashire after it appeared a reduction in the number of councils was the only way a devolution deal would ever be done – the proposal put forward by County Hall was for three new authorities.

Although it never came to pass, the suggestion was for standalone councils covering central and southern parts of the county (Preston, South Ribble, Chorley and West Lancashire), a broad western and northern area (Blackpool, Wyre, Fylde, Lancaster and Ribble Valley) and the east (Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Rossendale, Hyndburn and Pendle).

However, if concrete proposals for change do emerge this time around there is likely to be lengthy local debate about the exact shape they should take.

During the 2020 discussions, for instance, Preston City Council suggested a four-way tie-up between itself, South Ribble, Chorley and West Lancashire.   Yet just 24 hours later, the latter three put forward a similar proposal – but left Preston out of it.

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