An Extraordinary meeting of the Council will be held on Tuesday 22nd July 6.30pm at the Village Hall to discuss proposed Local Government Reorganisation and it’s affect on Doveridge and surrounding villages. Please attend to have your say!
Local authorities across the country are being reorganised. At present there are two models for local councils:
• Unitary councils where a single council is responsible for the delivery of all local services in an area.
• Two tier councils where the County Council delivers 80% of the services including roads, schools and social services and District Councils which are more locally based and deliver services such as rubbish collection, maintenance of parks and support for local businesses.
After reorganisation, there will be only unitary councils and the total number of local authorities will be drastically reduced.
In Derbyshire, we presently have one unitary authority serving the City of Derby, one County Council serving the balance of the county and 8 District councils, including our own District, Derbyshire Dales. All 10 Derbyshire councils have proposed to Government that two new unitary councils be created, A Southern Council and a Northern Council.
Under the current proposals, the Derbyshire Dales area will all become part of the Northern Council. South Derbyshire which includes villages along the A50 corridor up to Foston will sit in the Southern Council along with the City of Derby. There are 3 options presented, one with Erewash in the Northern Council, one with it in the Southern Council and one with it split. The map below shows the third option.
Area 2 is Derbyshire Dales, Area 3 is South Derbyshire.
Doveridge Parish Councillors believe that the village would better served by being a part of the Southern Council which includes our local city of Derby rather than being on the very Southern boundary of a Northern Council which stretches up to the outskirts of Manchester and Sheffield. The councillors wish to consult with the village as a whole to determine if this view is shared by the majority of residents. If this is the case, The Parish Council will respond to the consultation (which is officially only asking a question about how Erewash will be treated) as a whole village response which may carry more weight than responses by individuals only.
We have therefore called an extraordinary meeting of the Parish Council which will be held at 6.30 on Tuesday 22 July in the village hall. We invite all residents to attend this meeting where you will be given the opportunity to:
• Ask questions of the councillors regarding why they think Doveridge should be included in the Southern Council
• Speak either for or against the official proposal where Doveridge is in the Northern Council
• Vote on the following motion:
“The residents of Doveridge believe that the village should be part of the proposed Southern Council following Local Government Reorganisation in Derbyshire”.
Doveridge Parish Council is extending an invitation to residents of local villages including Sudbury and Marston who are also presently served by Derbyshire Dales District Council to attend. If this invitation is accepted, the motion will be amended to include those villages as well as Doveridge.
This reorganisation is a once in a lifetime event. Please come to the meeting and let your views be known.