Unitary options explored as plan for Hastings Town Council floated

Hastings Borough Council has delivered its interim response to the government on how local government should be reorganised. It was preceded by a lengthy debate in Full Council when three options for a unitary authority or authorities in East Sussex were proposed. Plans for setting up a Hastings Town Council are also being aired. Text by Nick Terdre, research and graphics by Russell Hall.

The interim plan, which was agreed by all six East Sussex councils, is a single unitary authority for the county. While this is clearly the preferred choice of East Sussex County Council itself, it acknowledged that “council leaders remain open to presenting alternatives if the government changes its criteria, and if evidence and strong public support suggest other options.”

Meanwhile Brighton & Hove expressed the wish for five unitaries over the whole of Sussex, while West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is looking at one or two depending on whether Crawley decides to get together with Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in Surrey or Brighton wishes to expand west.

According to Jim McMahon, minister of state for Local Government and English Devolution in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, feedback on the interim plans should be delivered in the week starting 21 April.

Meanwhile HBC council leader Julia Hilton has written to McMahon asking for clarity with respect to the population sizes deemed acceptable for unitary authorities. While the devolution white paper proposed 500,000 as a minimum level, the minister of state told the District Councils Network conference last month that the government would be open to unitaries of up to 700,000 and as low as 350,000.

The letter also called for financial help to cover the cost of planning reorganisation; similarly ESCC stated, “…we will need the Government to fully fund the costs.” Last week McMahon said capacity funding of £7.6m would be made available for this purpose to the 21 two-tier areas. If distributed according to population, East Sussex and Brighton & Hove, which have been asked to submit a joint final proposal, would receive £267,019 and West Sussex £288,039. This is well below what councils expect the exercise to cost them: probably more than £1m, where WSCC are concerned.

Unitary requirements

To be acceptable to the government, unitaries must:

• achieve efficiencies
• improve capacity
• be capable of withstanding financial shocks.

The government has also asked that they abide by existing county and district boundaries.

Positions on reorganisation have changed since early February, when HBC said Hastings councillors had “agreed to work together to present a collective alternative vision…based on the principle of a federal model that retains democracy as close to local communities as possible.”

Now, as was made clear at the Full Council meeting on 19 March, the Greens and the Conservatives have decided that they back the single unitary, while the Labour group have opted for a unitary of towns along the coastal strip. Only the Hastings Independents still back the federal model.

The footprint for Labour’s coastal unitary has not yet been defined, though it would include Hastings, Eastbourne, Bexhill and Winchelsea. The logic is that this would group several seaside towns sharing the same problems, not least high levels of deprivation and homelessness. The inland area would form a second unitary.

Interactive map showing East Sussex split into a coastal strip unitary and an inland unitary. Despite the vast disparity in area, the two have roughly similar populations.

However neither of these two areas would meet the minimum population requirement – the combined population of the four coastal towns is around 261,000 and that of the Wealden area some 287,000. The financial viability of the coastal strip unitary is also questionable: the 2025/26 council tax income of Hastings and Eastbourne is much lower per person than the rest of East Sussex, while the demand on council services, including elevated temporary accommodation costs, would be much higher.

Under the Independents’ federal model, ESCC would be abolished while the five lower-tier councils – Hastings, Rother, Wealden, Lewes, and Eastbourne – would collaborate to deliver county-wide services coordinated by a new Federation of East Sussex Together (FEAST) board.

Proponents of this model claim that it works well in Manchester, including with the Greater Manchester mayor.

Interactive map showing the five East Sussex council areas included in the FEAST federal model proposed by the Hastings Independents, and potential unitary authorities in West Sussex and Brighton & Hove.

The report to the meeting listed a number of principles that any proposed unitary authority should embody: for example, that the “purpose of devolution should be to create empowered, thriving communities,” that “funding must be based on need,” that “our new council should be built from the bottom,” with communities having a real say on the decisions that affect them, and “our new council must have a continued presence in Hastings.”

Consultation

So when are the people of Hastings to have their say? That is currently unclear. While confirming to HOT that there will be a consultation, Hilton said, “We will be working on a plan in the coming weeks.” When it does happen, meetings and drop-ins will be held in all areas of the town, she said.

Among residents’ views which will be sought is their opinion on a Hastings town council, to fill the gap when the borough council, along with the other East Sussex councils, disappears in April 2028. “We must secure council-owned and -managed assets, such as our precious parks, green spaces, leisure centres, museums and community centres, so that they remain under the control of the community they serve, and a new town council may be the best way to do so,” Hilton has said. Any such Hastings town council would be funded by levying a precept on council tax payers.

Councillor numbers for the new unitaries are under discussion. Asked to provide an “early view as to the councillor numbers of each new unitary authority,” the interim plan says merely that there are 50 county councillors and 183 lower-tier councillors representing an electorate of just under 420,000, and that ratios of 4-5,000 per councillor are being reviewed.

That would suggest between 84 and 105 councillors, although ESCC councillors were briefed on 19 March that 70 to 80 councillors seems the likely “ballpark” range. Either range could result in changes to the current county electoral division boundaries, last reviewed in 2016. The government has made it clear that it sees a reduction in the current number of councillors as a desirable cost-saving.

The deadline for submitting the final proposal – government has asked for “any principal authority in the area of the county of East Sussex, to submit a proposal for a single tier of local government” – is 26 September.

 

Also in: Local Government

« Devolution: how does the financial side work?
ESCC elections: what might have been »