No Change To Suffolk Council Structure

Plans to completely overhaul who's in charge of council services in Suffolk stay as they are for now. Some say they may never change, despite years of planning and consulting by the Boundary Committee and millions of pounds spent.

The Government's just announced decisions on proposals for unitary councils for Exeter, Ipswich, Norwich, Norfolk, Suffolk and Devon.

Ministers are giving Exeter and Norwich city councils the green light to run all of their city’s local services as single unitary authority.

Unitaries for the whole of Norfolk and Devon were ruled out on the basis that they did not have the local support they needed to be successful.

For Suffolk, the Government wants councils and MPs to reach a consensus between them on what should happen, after no single proposal emerged that Ministers believed the county’s councils would unite behind. 

A proposal for a unitary authority in Ipswich was originally put to Ministers in 2007 but despite a strong case it was put on hold as it did not meet the full criteria. The Boundary Committee was then asked to look at an alternative proposal for the whole of Suffolk and came forward with two proposals, one for a single unitary council for the whole county and a two-unitary pattern comprising an 'Ipswich and Felixstowe' authority and a Rural Suffolk authority. 

Today's announcement means there'll be no change to the way councils are structured in Suffolk until an agreement can be reached between authorities across the county and MPs.