2026: Week 28 - LGR and ponies

This week the Government announced their decisions around Local Government Reorganisation.  Devon had submitted 5 proposals after the various authorities at County, District and Unitary level were unable to reach a consensus. The Government have decided to approve the proposal submitted by Exeter City Council and Plymouth Council, which will split the county into 4 large Unitary Councils, Exeter, Torbay, Plymouth and Devon Coast and Countryside.

While I understand the need to make local government easily accessible for everyone, and make the best use of funding and resources, this solution seems to favour the larger cities at the expense of the rest of the county.   To split the current Teignbridge Council Area across three Unitary Authorities seems unnecessarily bureaucratic, and the creation of the huge Coast and Countryside area I feel will cause more problems due to lower council tax receipts but higher costs for things like road maintenance and repairs, rural school funding, an aging population and of course the huge distances involved which always makes services expensive to deliver.

We must remember that these changes won’t take place overnight. In May 2027 there will be elections for the new Unitary Authorities, but these councillors will form “shadow” councils to work alongside the current administrations.  The aim is to complete the transfer to the new Unitary Councils in April 2028.

I will continue to scrutinise the details of LGR as we learn more over the coming months and share any information as it becomes available.

In news that may have been overshadowed by the LGR announcement, I was delighted to hear that plans put forward by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to change the way volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officers (CROs) are remunerated for their dedication to the service have been scrapped. 

Currently, CROs are volunteers who are paid an hourly rate if they are called out.  This payment came under fire when a court of appeal ruled they were serving as workers, not as volunteers, partly because of this payment. The MCA announced they would be removing this hourly payment to cement the volunteer status of the officers. 

Following a consultation with the Rescue Officers it became clear that removing this payment would have a detrimental effect on the service, and after receiving a letter signed by several MPs, including me, the Government stepped in and stopped the proposed changes.  This is a huge win for our brave CRO’s, who regularly risk their lives for the safety of others.

In other fantastic news, there has been a reprieve for the county’s beloved Dartmoor Ponies, a large number of which were facing an uncertain future under new plans for the management of Dartmoor.  The Government have stated that numbers of Dartmoor Ponies will not be included in the livestock figures suggested by Natural England, meaning that ponies will not be culled.  Whilst the management of Dartmoor has to be carefully managed to ensure the future of this unique landscape, it should not be to the detriment of the resident ponies.