The last time the local government structure in Norfolk faced any kind of change was over half a century ago.
Fast forward to this week and plans to change who is responsible for which services in Norfolk, came crashing down as the Labour government hit the pause button.
Local government reorganisation, which was being worked on for years, has eaten up a lot of officer time and money. And now everything has stopped.
Hearing from various colleagues and staff about how the plans to do away with District councils and bring in three unitary ones (which would oversee West Norfolk, East Norfolk and Greater Norwich) seemed poorly thought out, rushed and complicated.
The Tories started this process. Yet the County Tories at the time were at odds with their South Norfolk brethren. County wanted one unitary authority for Norfolk, South Norfolk wanted two. Eventually the government decided on three. But all this has now been paused/scrapped*
As for the current County administration headed by a business, oops sorry, political party, who are clearly clueless, gormless and haemorrhaging staff, they want people to believe they managed to stop this. With threatened court action. Which would have cost tax payers’ money. (Though perhaps a little loan from their leader could have been requested as he seems to have a few bob in his pocket)
So basically, as you were, we still have three levels of local government in Norfolk and as the diagram below shows, you can see who does what and how to contact them.
Of course those of us who could see how ill-prepared Norfolk was for local government reorganisation are trying very hard to bite our tongues and not utter the immortal words ‘I told you so…..’
*depending on who you believe
Hello this is Wymondham calling 