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Voters Back a Money-saving Greater Exeter Unitary Council Media Release 12 September 2008 Figures released today show that a unitary council for greater Exeter will provide savings of £34.2m over the first four years to offset the costs of reorganisation and provide ongoing savings of £3.1m per annum. The £34.2m will be used to pay back the costs of transition to the new unitary council, which are put at £9.5m. It will also cover the additional costs of reducing council tax in the areas of East Devon and Teignbridge, which would be part of the new unitary area, to the lower levels in Exeter. The rest will be used to support new services and future investment. "This shows that a greater Exeter unitary is clearly affordable and meets the payback criteria laid out by the government." said Councillor Pete Edwards, Chair of the Local Government Review Committee. "It also shows that residents of the new greater Exeter unitary will be significantly better off with the new council having an extra £3.1m per year to spend on enhancing services. This is on top of the already accepted benefits of strong leadership, more democratic accountability, better community engagement and sustainable, top quality services. Residents of the proposed new area are clearly being won over by the potential benefits. The results of a new MORI telephone poll of 1,000 residents in the proposed area shows that 61% of those polled were in favour of a greater Exeter unitary compared with only 27% seeing merit in a whole Devon unitary. The poll also shows that the support for a greater Exeter unitary is not only strong within the current city boundary (64%) but is almost as strong from those living in the area currently part of East Devon (59%). Cllr Edwards added: "It's very clear when you look at the poll results for the greater Exeter area that more than two to one are in favour of an urban focussed unitary authority and do not want to see their voices swallowed up in a giant rural single Devon unitary." The City Council has also expressed doubt over the figures being produced by Devon County Council on the costs the rest of Devon will incur as a result of a two unitary solution, claiming that Devon County Council are double counting expenditure and therefore their savings from a two unitary solution will be far higher than their figures show. |
