Crawley Borough Council's full council is scheduled to meet to discuss a report regarding local government reorganisation, and consider additional information that was not available when the original agenda was published. The council will consider a recommendation to the cabinet regarding which, if any, of the available options for local government reorganisation it wishes to submit.

Local Government Reorganisation

The Full Council will be asked to consider report CEX/72 of the Chief Executive, prior to its consideration by the cabinet. The report concerns the government's statutory request to councils in two-tier areas to submit proposals for local government reorganisation (LGR). The council has been working with other local authorities across West Sussex to develop a business case for three different options. The report also sets out other options that are available, and the pros and cons of each. According to the report, no officer recommendation is being made, and the purpose is to set out the available information so that the council can make a recommendation to cabinet on which of the options to submit.

A supplementary paper, Local Government Re-organisation Submission Further information, will also be discussed, containing information that was not available when the original agenda was published, specifically in relation to the five-unitary proposal from Brighton & Hove City Council for local government reorganisation across Sussex, which was published on 17 September. The additional information in sections 3 and 4 of the supplementary report is intended to replace paragraphs 5.12, 5.13, 6.9 and 6.10 of the main report CEX/72.

The Brighton & Hove proposal recommends creating five unitary authorities with broadly similar population sizes (between 300,000 and 400,000), differentiating between coastal communities and market towns and rural hinterland, but not accounting for the urban new town characteristic of Crawley. The proposed five unitaries are:

• Unitary A (population 301,130): Brighton & Hove extended to include East Saltdean & Telscombe Cliffs, Peacehaven and Falmer
• Unitary B (population 359,868): Eastbourne, Rother, Hastings, south of Wealden and Lewes coastal wards
• Unitary C (population 322,617): Mid-Sussex, north of Wealden and Lewes (minus Saltdean & Telscombe Cliffs, Peacehaven, Falmer and coastal wards)
• Unitary D (population 294,308): Crawley, Horsham, Chichester
• Unitary E (population 343,098): Arun, Adur and Worthing

The report states that neither officers, nor the joint programme team developing the West Sussex proposals, have been directly involved in developing the Brighton & Hove proposals, and that in the limited time available it is clear that the evidence base behind the West Sussex and Brighton & Hove business cases are different and therefore not directly comparable.

The report states that none of the 15 options considered in West Sussex considered either a unitary consisting of Crawley, Horsham and Chichester or one that would see Mid-Sussex merge with councils in East Sussex. A unitary consisting of Arun, Adur and Worthing was considered as part of a three-unitary option for West Sussex, but was not shortlisted primarily due to the significant financial imbalance that would exist with such an arrangement.

The covering report for Brighton & Hove's five-unitary proposal recognises the issue of financial imbalance, but their approach is to highlight underlying financial pressures and the need for these to be addressed through the fair funding review¹. The Brighton & Hove submission also recognises that due to the complexity, the transition costs of the five-unitary unitary model are significant at £197m and higher than the three and four unitary options, and that the transition is expected to take 10 years within a phased approach.

The report states that the strength of the Brighton & Hove option is the population balance of 300,000 to 400,000 across the five unitaries and how the fits with the new Sussex-wide strategic authority, but that to achieve this there is significant compromise made in other areas, requiring cutting across both all upper tier and two lower tier authorities, bringing a complexity to the process, including significant disaggregation and significant costs for what would be a longer transition, and leaving the financial viability of at least some of the unitaries created uncertain.

The report also notes that the proposal distinguishes between coastal communities and market town and rural hinterlands, but it takes no account of urban new town characteristics, and this strength does not therefore apply for Crawley, and that there has been no consideration of a Crawley, Horsham and Chichester solution in the West Sussex work, and therefore no engagement has taken place for such, and that extrapolating from the engagement that has been undertaken, more localised arrangements have been preferred, with the connections survey undertaken prior to the Reigate & Banstead proposal finding comparatively low levels of Crawley residents accessing Chichester for either work (11%), leisure (29%) or shopping (23%).