Wychavon opts out of super district plans

11:43am Thursday 15th May 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

WYCHAVON District Council opted out of a plan to create a "super district" with Worcester City and Malvern Hills because members and officers did not think it would benefit the district's residents, it has been revealed.

We broke the news earlier this week that proposals are under consideration which could see Worcester and Malvern's two sets of staff being merged to form a single workforce.

However, we can now also reveal a plan for a South Worcestershire Partnership - encompassing all three councils - was previously rejected by Wychavon.

At a council meeting, Coun Rob Adams asked council leader Paul Middlebrough to reassure councillors that the Worcester and Malvern plan would not jeopardize shared services between all of the south Worcestershire councils.

Currently, revenues and benefits is one area where all three councils are working together to remove duplication.

In response, a statement from Wychavon managing director Jack Hegarty was released which said the councils had faced a choice between creating a South Worcestershire Partnership with a single management team or continuing to share services on an ad-hoc basis.

Mr Hegarty said: "We have reached a conclusion that our preference is still the pragmatic bottom-up approach where services are joined up on a case-by-case basis.

He added: "Our board view differs from Malvern and Worcester who favour the top down merger model.

"While we fully understand the rationale for this, and their different contexts, at this stage we cannot see how a formal partnership would benefit Wychavon's residents - in terms of improving services or reducing costs."

Coun Middlebrough added: "We will continue to work with the authorities of South Worcestershire and we wish Malvern Hills and Worcester well in this joint venture but such an arrangement involving Wychavon would not be in our residents' interests.

"We are happy that there is cross-party support for Wychavon's stance."