The Green Party/Lib-Dem coalition that makes up Wealden District Council's ruling Cabinet has failed to agree on whether to support any of the proposals for East Sussex in local government reorganisation, arguing over costs, cultural identity and local accountability.
Amid an atmosphere of confusion and dither, the Cabinet would not endorse the ‘One East Sussex’ unitary model recently although it has gained the support of its five local authority neighbours.
There was a debate at Wealden's Full Council but councillors there were denied a vote on the One East Sussex proposal, leaving the district’s position in limbo as the deadline to inform central government approached.
The cross-party, cross-county proposal which seeks to combine councils into a single unitary authority, has received backing from neighbouring authorities, including East Sussex County Council, Eastbourne Borough Council, Lewes District Council, Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council.
Yet the One East Sussex idea sparked furious debate in Gree/Lib-Dem-run Wealden. Its councillors expressed outrage that a county-wide council would be ‘too big and remote’ to serve local residents.
Cabinet members also raised concerns over financial issues even though this model started with the best financial position of all the options on the table because the competing proposals would see large disaggregation costs due to social care, and suffer from the financial disadvantage of a smaller size.
Wealden's left-leaning Cabinet’s inability to reach a resolution leaves Wealden isolated as the only authority not to indicate a preference among the six authorities in East Sussex who collaborated over the East Sussex unitary modelling and consultation.
